Journal Article

Occurrence of Bacterial Species from Mobile Phones of Students from Two Departments in Niger State Polytechnic Zungeru, Nigeria

Abstract

Mobile phones have become essential accessories in our daily activities. However unlike our skin and clothes that we wash regularly, our mobile phones are seldom cleaned thereby serve as fomites for a variety of infections. Isolation and characterization of bacteria species from mobile phones were investigated. A total of 50 samples were collected from the cell phones of the volunteers from the two departments at the school premises using swab stick and were cultured on Nutrient agar, MacConkey and Centrimide agar using spread plate method. Bacterial species encountered from phones of students in Biological sciences include: Staphylococcus aureus (40%), E coli (20%), Klebsiella sp (16%), Salmonella sp (8%), and Bacillus sp (16%). While those encountered from phones of students in Estate managements include: Staphylococcus aureus (36%), E coli (28%), Klebsiella sp (12%), Salmonella sp (8%) and Pseudomonas sp (16%). In general, personal hand hygiene is very important and phone decontamination with disinfectants such as ethanol and the likes should be adopted by phone users to prevent cross and self-contamination by these bacteria species

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