Bioaerosols in residential micro-environments in low income countries: A case study from Pakistan

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Environmental Pollution 168 (2012) 15e22

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Bioaerosols in residential micro-environments in low income countries: A case study from Pakistan Zaheer Ahmad Nasir a,1, Ian Colbeck a, *, Sikander Sultan b, Shakil Ahmed c a

Department of Biological Sciences, University of Essex, Colchester, Essex CO4 3SQ, UK Department of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics, University of the Punjab, Lahore-54590, Pakistan c Department of Mycology and Plant Pathology, University of the Punjab, Lahore-54590, Pakistan b

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Article history: Received 16 December 2011 Received in revised form 23 March 2012 Accepted 31 March 2012

Our knowledge of the concentrations of bioaerosols in residential micro-environments in low income countries is scanty. The present investigation was conducted to assess the culturable concentration and size distribution of bacteria, gram negative bacteria and fungi in two rural and an urban site in Pakistan. The highest indoor culturable bacteria concentration was found at Rural Site II (14,650 CFU/m3) while the outdoor maximum occurred at the urban site (16,416 CFU/m3). With reference to fungi, both indoor and outdoor concentrations were considerably higher at Rural Site I than the other sites. The size distribution of culturable bacteria at all sites showed greater variability than that of culturable fungi. At all sites more than the half (55e93%) of the culturable bacterial and fungal counts were observed in the respirable fraction (