Bacterial contamination of donor blood at the Tamale Teaching Hospital, Ghana

Transfusion of bacterially contaminated blood can result in sepsis and will constitute a substantial health burden to the patient.

To assess the level of transfusion related sepsis and the bacterial types responsible for the contamination at the Tamale Teaching Hospital in Ghana.

We sampled 80 refrigerated donor blood at the blood bank and cultured them for bacteria. The antimicrobial sensitivities of the isolates were also determined.

14 blood bags representing 17.5% grew isolates of various bacteria. Ten (10) of the 14 isolates were Gram positive cocci representing 71.42% making it the commonest contaminant. 50% of the gram positive cocci were identified to be coagulase negative staphylococci and 21.42% were Staphylococcus aureus. There were 14.28% isolates which were Gram positive rods, and were identified to be Corynebacterium diphtheroids. There were two isolates which were Gram negative rods; one was identified as Escherichia coli and the other one Klebsiella pneumoniae. Sensitivity among the organisms were varied; as all the 14 (100%) of the organisms isolated were sensitive to amikacin, only 14.28% of the coagulase negative staphylococci were sensitive to co-trimoxazole, 28.5% were sensitive to ampicillin, 42.8% were sensitive to cefuroxime and 71.4% were sensitive to ciprofloxacin. Sensitivity to gentamicin was observed to be 85.7% and 28.5% were sensitive to Tetracycline. Only the 10 Gram positive cocci were tested against erythromycin and Cloxacillin; where 70.00% were sensitive to cloxacillin and 90% were sensitive to erythromycin.

All the Staphylococcus aureus isolated were resistant to both ampicillin and cotrimoxazole. Potential dangers and consequences of transfusing multidrug resistance bacteria have been discussed.