EPIDEMIOLOGIC ESTIMATION OF PSEUDOMONAS-AERUGINOSA STRAINS ISOLATED FROM DIFFERENT ENVIRONMENTS

117 P. aeruginosa strains have been isolated from hospital material (v ascular ward), from ambulatory patients, from lake water samples and f rom animal environment. The serological characters of the above strain s, their phage - typing patterns, their capability of producing ONPG h ydrolase were compared in order to find out the strain with identical features responsible for nosocomial infections and also to find endemi c infections. There were eleven polyagglutinable strains (isolated fro m sinks in the vascular ward) which agglutinated with two sera and one strain isolated from lake water. Apart from one exception there were no confirmations of the occurrence of the strains of identical feature s in different environments. Possible variability within the scope of somatic antigen and the phage typing of microorganism confirm the nece ssity to use several techniques to carry out studies of epidemiologica l significance.