Profile Of Bacteria And Fungi On Money Coins

Abstract

Objectives: To determine the quantity and quality of bacterial and fungi on money coins and to identify those that could pose a public health risk. Design: Random sampling of coins from subjects within predetermined categories. Setting: Westlands division of Nairobi Metropolitan province. Subjects: Twenty-shilling coin samples were collected from matatu (a common commuter vehicle in Kenya) taxi conductors, greengrocers, shoe shiners, butchers, food kiosk/restaurant attendants, grocery shops attendants, roast maize vendors and school children. Forty coin samples were analysed for both the total viable content and the types of bacterial and fungal organisms. Results: Average bacterial content on the coins ranged from 2.3xl0 3 to 25.5x10 3 and fungi content from 11 to 377 colony forming units. The following potentially pathogenic bacteria were among those isolated: Escherichia coli, Klebsiella, Serratia, Enterobacter, Salmonella, Acinetobacter, Enterococci, Staphylococcus and Bacillus cereus. In addition, this is the first report of potentially pathogenic fungal isolation from money coins. Penicillium spp, Aspergillus niger, Fusarium, Rhizopus, Altenaria spp, Candida spp and Cryptococcus were isolated. Conclusion: Money coins harbour potentially pathogenic bacteria and fungi that may pose a public health risk. Hand hygiene is therefore strongly recommended, especially for those who simultaneously handle food and money.

Dirty Money: A Matter of Bacterial Survival, Adherence, and Toxicity

“…While it is obvious that a wide range of bacteria are present on the surfaces of coins in varying qualities [3,6,9,21,36,37,38,39,40], our previous data (Figure 5 and Table 2) show that many bacteria are inhibited by exposure to coins. In order to shed light on the fact that bacteria are still present on coins that are in circulation, we investigated whether bacteria would adapt to their environment when they were pre-exposed to coin metal.…”

“…Notwithstanding a hastily moving society where credit cards, mobile phone apps, near-field-communication systems, and cryptocurrencies such as bitcoins are rapidly replacing the use of hard currencies [1,2], cash exchanges still make up a significant means of exchange for small value purchases, while cash is still commonly used in developing countries for high value purchases. Apart from the want of people to possess money, there is a very large body of research that points out that currency is covered in all sorts of filth and microorganisms (e.g., [3,4,5,6,7,8,9]). A search of available literature uncovered in excess of 100 publications that report on the presence of microorganisms on banknotes and/or coins since the late 1800s, with roughly two thirds of those papers being published in the last decade.…”

Toward a Metagenomic Understanding on the Bacterial Composition and Resistome in Hong Kong Banknotes

“…Studies using culture-dependent experiments were limited to assess the presence of particular culturable bacteria (Kuria et al, 2009; Moosavy et al, 2013). Although the 16S rRNA gene sequencing has overcome the problems of investigating culturable bacteria by identifying all bacteria present in an environment exhaustively (Pereira da Fonseca et al, 2015), it still suffers from the problem of low resolution of taxonomic profiling and lack of functional description for bacterial communities.…”

Money and transmission of bacteria

“…While the kind of isolated bacteria between studies can vary, due to the methods used, season, environmental conditions, sort of money (coin or banknote) or local community flora, in general, Gram positive bacteria were the most predominant [4-9]. …”