Pathogen Fungal Isolation from Unused and Used Shoes

The purpose of this study is to investigate the level of risk factors in terms of infection source of pathogenic fungi at tanned leather used in shoe making or unused and used shoes. Samples were taken from shoes with swaps. Of the 100 samples taken from the shoe-making leather; pathogenic fungal findings were found in 16(15%) of them, including Penicillium sp.5(5%), Aspergillus versicolor 3(3%), Fusarium sp.2(2%), Aspergillus flavus 2(2%), Aspergillus fumigatus 2(2%), Trichophyton rubrum 1(1%) and Aspergillus niger 1(1%). Besides, in the samples collected from used leather shoes.; 40 pathogenic fungal growth were identified from 100 samples collected in total which are Fusarium sp.7(7%), Rhodotorula sp.7(7%), Candida sp. 6(6%), Penicillium sp. 5(5%), Acremonium sp. 5(5%), Rhizopus sp. 4(4%), Trichophyton rubrum 3(3%), Trichophyton mentagrophytes 1(1%), Epidermophyton floccosum 1(1%) and Chrisosporium keratinophylum 1(%1). As a result of this research, It was observed that there was a significant difference between the samples taken from used shoes (40%) and unused shoes (16%) in terms of the isolation rate of pathogenic and rare pathogenic yeasts and molds(p