[Acanthamoeba, Naegleria and invertebrates in wet areas of physiotherapy equipment in hospitals].

In the course of investigations on the occurrence of primary free-living amoebae in different aquatic habitats, especially Naegleria and Acanthamoeba, we now investigated the moist areas in physiotherapeutic departments of 10 hospitals. As a result 61% of the swabs taken in those areas were positive with one or several species of amoebae cultivated on NN-agar according to Page. Among many other species observed during this study we were able to isolate 47 strains of Acanthamoeba and only two strains of Naegleria. The Naegleria-strains did not appear to be thermophilic. Therefore they are part of the N. gruberi-complex, which is considered to include only non pathogenic strains. Six from 47 strains of Acanthamoebae isolated revealed pathogenic characters as demonstrated in the MIT (Mice inoculation test). As a remarkable result four of these 6 strains with proven pathogenicity were not thermophilic at + 40 degrees C. Eventually all strains even not being thermophilic should in future be tested on pathogenicity. Additionally, nematodes and rotifers were isolated from several samples.