B. K. Nayak, S. Nandita and A. Nanda

ABSTRACT

Exposure of human beings to airborne micro flora may result in a variety of adverse health effects including infectious diseases, allergic and irritant responses, respiratory problems and hypersensitivity reactions. It has been studied by many researchers that human exposure usually occurs nearer to the ground and ground level had significantly higher concentration of some important fungal aeroallergens .The objective of this study was to estimate the total count of airborne fungi from ground floor and first floor of air conditioned IT laboratories of the Department of computer science in a Sathyabama University, Chennai. During the study period, a total number of 744 fungal CFUs m-3 of air were recorded from both the indoors of IT laboratories. Of which, ground floor laboratory contributed the higher number of CFUs (53%) and first floor laboratory contributed lesser number of CFUs (47%). indoor environment of both the laboratories have total of 18 fungal species belonging to 10 genera. Among the total number of isolated fungal species from indoor air of IT laboratories, Aspergillus contributed 6 species followed by 3 species of Penicillium. and 2 species of Cladosporium has been isolated from both the IT laboratories. In our study, Indoors of both the IT laboratory was occupied with many allergic fungi. Cladosporium herbarum was found to have the maximum percentage of occurance followed by Aspergillus niger, Cladosporium cladosporioides, A. awamorii, A. flavus and A. ochraceous. Penicillium chrysogenum was also recorded and its occurrence was followed by Penicillium spinulosum. it has been also revealed from our study that prevalence of fungal species was predominant during the months of December, January and February followed by August ,September and October. The least number of fungi were isolated in the months of April, May and June in both the IT laboratories. Keywords: Ground floor, First Floor, IT laboratory, University, Allergy, Fungal CFUs.