Manual and Instrumental Methods in the Quantitative Assessment of Bacteria Surviving in Laundered Fabrics
Keywords:
laundering, bacteria, colony counting, blood soils, textilesAbstract
The evaluation of the laundering process requires microbiological cleanness testing. There are no clearly established methods for determining the number of microorganisms surviving in fabrics after washing. The aim of the study was to evaluate the number of bacteria surviving the laundry process in textiles stained with blood. Cotton textile samples were infected with three species of bacteria and subjected to model laundering. Following this process, microorganisms were extracted, cultivated and counted. Two colony counting methods - manual and instrumental - were applied. The results show that laundering infected textiles reduces the number of all the bacteria tested. Nevertheless, two species, i.e. Staphylococcus aureus and Bacillus cereus survived in large numbers when a wash bath was used, which may potentially lead to cross-contamination. The instrumental method proved to be better when there are up to 500 colonies to be measured. It also shortens the total time needed to perform the analysis.
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