Evaluating the role of the working environment on to skin and upper respiratory tract microbiota of museum workers

Aims: The aim of the study was the investigation of the composition of cultivable microbiota colonizing the skin and the upper respiratory tract mucosa of museum workers, in order to evaluate the potential occupational risk to their health and wellbeing. Methods: This study was voluntarily attended by 50 workers of a Romanian museum, for which their hands, noses and throats were sampled using sterile swabs.The API tests were used to identify the β-hemolytic strains, and penicillin and the cefoxitin susceptibility test was performed for Staphylococccus sp. strains. Results: This study showed that a high percentage of the museum workers presented changes in the normal oropharyngeal and skin cultivable microbiota, indicated by the presence of dysbiosis, β-hemolytic microorganisms, methicillin and penicillin resistant staphylococci. The identification step revealed species of staphylococci which showed high levels of resistance to penicillin and methicillin. Conclusions: The highlighted opportunistic and antibiotic resistant bacterial strains may be a risk factor for workers. The work environment should be further investigated as a possible source of contamination, since some of the species identified in the present study were also identified in a former study, made in the same museum, showing the possibility that contamination has occurred at the workplace.