CAN MOBILE PHONES ACT AS VEHICLES TRANSMITTING NOSOCOMIAL INFECTIONS

Mobile phones are increasingly used by healthcare personnel for communication. They can harbour various potential pathogens and become an exogenous source of nosocomial infections. Aims and objectives : To study the bacteriological profile of the surfaces of mobile phones of healthcare personnel of various departments in a tertiary healthcare hospital and to compare it with the control group. Materials and Methods: A total of 100 samples from the cell phones belonging to health care personnel and 40 control samples from non health care workers were collected. Sterile swabs moistened with nutrient broth were rotated over the surfaces of mobile phones. The swabs were cultured by the routine methodology and the plates were incubated at 37 o C for 24 hours. The bacterial colonies were identified and biochemical tests and antimicrobial susceptibility tests were carried out for pathogenic bacterial isolates. Results: The results showed high prevalence of pathogenic bacterial contamination of mobile phones of healthcare personnel. Coagulase negative Staphylococcus (CONS) followed by Staphylococcus aureus, E. coli, Klebsiella spp., Pseudomonas sp., and Acinetobacter spp. were the most prevalent bacterial agents isolated from these mobile phones. No pathogen was isolated from the control samples. Conclusion: Mobile phones may serve as vehicles of transmission of both hospital and community-acquired bacterial diseases. Strict adherence to infection control practices, such as hand washing, and other precautions must be advocated to avoid this.