Evaluation of bacterial contamination in a clinical environment.

Background: Although the contamination of the dental environment and personnel through aerosol contamination is a definite source of cross contamination; there is little data on the microbial involvement of the dental environment.

Materials And Methods: A total of 100 samples were taken from various inanimate surfaces in the clinical dental setting were collected aseptically by rotating sterile swabs moistened with peptone water over the surfaces of the samples and then inoculated into brain heart infusion broth and incubated at 37°C aerobically overnight. Subcultures were made on 5% sheep blood agar and MacConkey agar plates and incubated at 37°C for 24 h.