Effect of radiation on the microflora of Egyptian medical cotton

The microflora of samples of cotton produced for medical uses, collected from three different districts of great Cairo were examined for occurance of radiation-resistant bacteria. The maximum value of the initial bacterial load was found to be 145x103 bacterial cells/gm. The identified strains were found to be the gram positive rod spore-forming bacilus firmus, B megaterium and B cereus. Different grampositive cocci were found to be allocated to each of the studied districts i.e., micrococcus luteus to Heliopolice, sarcina to Dokki and staphylococcus epidermidis to Imbaba dose response curves for the most commonly found strains in dry state ensure that a dose of 22.5 KGY is quite sufficient to inactivate the most radioresistant isolated strains by more than 9 orderds. This result was confirmed by the sterility control test using thioglycolate and sabouraud media. (author)