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

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

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

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

Results: 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.

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