Diversidade de formicidae em ambiente hospitalar público do município de Macapá-Amapá

Abstract

Ants have diverse eating habits, they are always searching for food, which leads them to infest various environments including hospitals, representing public health problems as they may walk around potentially contaminated environments and then intact environments like surgical center and sterile equipment, acting as carriers of pathogenic microorganisms. Thus, this study aimed to estimate the diversity of Formicidae, in more and less rainy periods and in the morning and evening shifts of six rooms of a public hospital in the city of Macapá, AP. The ants were collected, through systematic collection by active searching and honey bait, for six months of the year 2012, with sterile swabs soaked in saline solution. It was collected 11.607 ants belonging to subfamilies Dolichoderinae (86.8%), Formicinae (8.41%) and Myrmicinae (4.78%). The most abundant species were Tapinoma melanocephalum (86.53%) and Paratrechina longicornis (4.70%). The clinic room was the richer and more abundant environment; there was no significant difference in the abundance of species in the environments during the periods and shifts. However, there were differences in the abundance of species, predominating Tapinoma melanocephalum, in all the environments. Ants showed themselves capable of exploring the most diverse places in the hospital environment, and even though only a small percentage of nosocomial infections can be attributed to ants, these represent significant economic losses, since the goal of public health institutions is to provide the welfare of the population served, which can be achieved, in part, by the reduction of factors that contribute to nosocomial infection