A study was conducted on bacteriological analysis of hand pump water for determining the quality and extent of contamination. A total of 100 hand pump water samples were studied for enumeration of typical staphylococci (TS) and Coagulase positive staphylococci (CPS). On m-staphylococcal agar 82% samples yielded typical staphylococcal colonies, 79% of which was in the range of 1-20 cfu/100ml, 15% in the range of 20-40 and 2% were between 100-500 staphylococci/100ml. Coagulase positive staphylococcus were found in 25 samples, of which 76% had a range of 1-20 and remaining 24% had count less than 100 cfu/100ml of hand pump water tested. Minimum value was 1 and maximum 364 for TS while for CPS minimum value was 2 and maximum was 86 cfu/100ml, with a mean value of 80.5 and 15.86 respectively. From 82 samples, 106 colonies randomly selected among 1733 golden to orange colonies of TS obtained on m-staphylococcal agar, were subjected to coagulase positive test. Thirty two coagulase positive strains from 25 positive samples were isolated and characterized. Twenty five were Mannitol fermentation positive while seven were negative. In our study 30% typical staphylococci were found pathogenic i.e. coagulase positive. A varying degree of resistance and susceptibility was found against twelve antibiotics. Ampiclox was found 100% effective for these CPS strains.
Keywords: Antibiotic resistance, Coagulase positive Staphylococci, Ground water, Staphylococci
