Swabbing Computers in Search of Nosocomial Bacteria

A Study on Bacterial Flora on the Finger printing Surface of the Biometric Devices at a Tertiary Care Hospital

“…A study conducted on the mobile phones of health care personnel in a tertiary care hospital, 65% were CONS and Staphylococcus aureus was the commonest pathogen to be isolated followed by Gram negative bacilli like E.coli, Pseudomonas sp., Acinetobacter sp., etc. A study done by Isaac et al, showed the growth of coagulase-negative Staphylococcus species from 25 keyboards (Isaacs et al, 1998). Similar studies conducted on the keyboards in ICU by Bures et al, showed MRSA to be the commonest organism, followed by Enterococcus spp and Enterobacter spp.…”

Bacterial Isolates from Cell Phones and Hands of Health Care Workers: A Cross Sectional Study in Pediatric Wards at Black Lion Hospital, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

“…Pediatric wards and NICU are not exceptions [7]. Studies have demonstrated pathogenic and potential pathogenic bacteria were contaminated frequently hand touched materials [8][9][10][11]. Cell phones are among non-medical devices used routinely all day long but not cleaned properly, as health care workers (HCWs) do not wash their hands as often as they should before and after touching cell phones [12,13].…”

“…Many studies have shown that both medical and non-medical devices used in the hospitals are the major sources of HAIs [8,9,15,16]. In one controlled study done in India on 200 mobile phones of HCWs, bacteriological analysis revealed that 144 of the 200 (72%) were contaminated with bacteria [17].…”

Cell Phones andAcinetobacterTransmission

“…Contamination and nosocomial transmission of pathogens by other electronic devices also has been demonstrated; a contaminated personal computer has been implicated in transmission of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus to a nurse. Computer keyboards have been contaminated with staphylococci and Pseudomonas spp (4). Keyboards also have been implicated in nosocomial A. baumannii infection in burn units and ICUs (5) and have been contaminated with enterococci and Enterobacter spp with a genetically identical methicillin-resistant S. aureus strain (6).…”