Prevalence of microorganism in cell phone and the behavioral pattern associated with the demographic of Dhaka City (North)

Abstract

The mobile phone is currently the most used technological device used by the population of the planet. Due to its availability and efficiency of usage, it is very popular amongst the people of both developed and developing Countries. But, alongside its benefits, it also is considered one of the main vectors for transmitting pathogenic organisms and being a reservoir of them. With this in mind, the demography of Dhaka City (North) is selected to observe the prevalence of organism amongst the cellphones of the population and isolate and identify a group of potentially disease-causing organism. Total 100 mobile samples included in this study for isolation of bacteria. 92% of the cellphones were found to be contaminated with bacteria and 187 bacterial samples were isolated from the mobile phones. Out of these colonies, we found Staphylococcus spp (50.7%), Bacillus spp (13.2%), Micrococcus spp (11%), E. coli (14.1%) and Fecal coliforms (11%). It is found that the participants who used cellphone while eating, using the cellphone in the washroom, sharing the cellphone with other persons and using the cellphone while being sick had more potentially pathogenic microorganisms than the participants who did not. It is found that the participants who daily cleaned their cellphone with any commercially available cleaning agent such as 70% ethanol, hand sanitizer or even commonly available liquid hand wash had no microorganisms present in them. It is found that personal hand hygiene and cellphone hygiene is very important and also washing of hand before and after handling of food and phone decontamination should be adopted by people of Dhaka City to prevent cross and self-contamination by these bacteria. Regular usage of commercially available solvents are also recommended to be used regularly as they are actively capable of removing bacteria from the surface of cellphone and keeping it clean.