2.3. Lab procedures
Once in the laboratory, bacteria from the swabs were transferred to the solution in the manner used in our previous study on the bacterial load (see Zabłotni et al., 2020 for technical details). The bacteria were cultivated and incubated on Tryptic Soy Agar medium (TSA) for 48 h at 37±1°C, then for an additional 48 h at 25±1°C and the colony forming units (CFU) were counted. The results were expressed as CFU/ml.