Indoor Study on Airborne Fungi in Swine House of Bangalore, India

In rural areas of India and other tropical as well as temperate countries a large number of people are occupationally involved with different types of animal sheds. In these sheds, a wide range of fungal growth substrates like moldy livestock foods, moldy hay, bedding of animals and their excreta are present, which could provide a huge airborne fungal spore load making these places unhygienic for the animal workers. The nature and seasonal variations of fungi have been investigated in the environments within partially and completely enclosed swine house during one-year period by fortnightly sampling from January 2011 to December 2011, using an Andersen two stage viable air sampler. The air samples were collected from indoor swine houses in Hessaraghatta village, Bangalore. A total of 69.11 CFU/m3 airborne spore and 25 species representing 14 genera were recorded which included Acremonium, Alternaria sp, A. alternata, Aspergillus sp, A. flavus, A. fumigatus, A. niger, Botrytis sp, Cladosporium sp, C. cladosporioides, C. herbarum, C.lunata, Curvularia sp, Fusarium sp, F.moniliforme, F.oxysporum, Mucor sp, Nigrospora sp, Pencillium sp, P. nigricans, Phoma, Rhizopus sp, Rhizopus oryzae, Scopulariopsis sp, Trichoderma sp, and 1 unidentified genera. The aim of the present study was performed to evaluate the quality and magnitude of exposure to airborne fungi in indoor air and to compare the seasonal variation of fungal genera with regard to these environments