[
International Worm Meeting,
2021]
It has become a public health concern to evaluate the safety of the only readily consumable and unfiltered part of the biosphere, the air, most especially from the densely populated region like the students' hostel. This study was conducted to investigate the colony-forming unit per unit volume of staphylococci in the indoor air of students' halls of residence, the biochemical characteristics, and antibiotic resistance profile of the isolates. Using the open-plate method to collect samples from the indoor air as described by Omeliansky, identification of the isolates was based on standard methods such as colonial morphology, Gram stain reaction, catalase, and deoxyribonuclease tests. The antibiotic susceptibility profile was on the standard disk diffusion method using commercially available antibiotic discs (Abtek, Habdiscs) including ciprofloxacin 5 mug/mL, gentamicin 10 mug/mL, and tetracycline 30 mug/mL. A total of 26 staphylococci isolates were obtained from which none (0%), 4 (15%), and 10 (37%) of the isolates were resistant to ciprofloxacin, gentamicin, and tetracycline, respectively with no intermediate. Using a mathematical model, it is deduced that the year of release of the antibiotics has a non-linear correlation with the recorded rate of resistance of the staphylococci to the antibiotics, which predicts an efficacy duration window of 104 years for each of the antibiotics. These findings predict a future increasing pattern of antimicrobial resistance, which may lead to serious public health threats if antimicrobial stewardship measures are not put in place.