Spreading of Enterococcus faecalis and Enterococcus faecium in Hospitals and Water Environment in Mosul City

This study was performed to determine the prevalence of Enterococcus faecalis and Enterococcus faecium in hospitals and water environment in Mosul city. 240 specimens were collected during the period from September to December / 2011, 120 specimens were from water environment in addition to 120 specimens from hospitals environment (General Hospital, Ibin-Sena Hospital and Al-Khansaa teaching Hospital). Isolation and identification were done using a number of specific selective media for Enterococcus in addition to biochemical and serological tests then conformational tests were done using API 20 Strep and ID32 Strep.
The results illustrated that the genus Enterococcus was isolated at 30% of all isolates (56.94 % was from Hospitals and 43.05% was from water environment). The isolated ratio of E. faecalis (18.1%) was higher than E.faecium (12.5%).