Oral cavity of eighty (80) primary school pupils was swabbed at Umueze community Primary School, Aba local government area of Abia state in duplicates. The first swabbed were placed into nutrient broth and its duplicates were placed into MacConkey broth. They were incubated for 24hours after which that of nutrient broth was sub-cultured into nutrient agar and its duplicate in MacConkey broth was also subcultured intoMacConkey agar and incubated for another 24hours.
The colonies from MacConkey agar were sub-culture into nutrient agar for pure isolates, while result showed that a total of 9 bacteria were isolated, characterized and identified. These organisms according to their frequency of occurrence were: Staphylococcus aureaus (11.1%), Escherichia coli (33.3%),Fusobacteriumspp (5.5%), Fusobacteriumnecrophorum (5.5%), Pseudomonas aeruginosa (22.2%), Streptococcus gallinarum (5.5%), Streptococcus pycogenes (5.5%), Micrococcus loteus(5.5%),Staphylococcusheamolyticus. Although these micro organisms are normal flora in the oral cavity of human but can become pathogenic when the immune system is suppressed, due to malnutrition of concomitant infection (any of the childhood disease).
