Using swabs and DNA extraction, new research claims to have uncovered the fullest picture yet of the microbes found on mobile phones, with big implications for healthcare workers.
Most of us already know our mobile phones are likely to provide a welcoming home for microbes. A new Australian study, however, claims to give the most comprehensive picture yet of the scale of contamination.
Its authors, who include Professor Mark Morgan, Chair of RACGP Expert Committee–Quality Care (REC–QC), believe the findings could have serious implications for healthcare workers’ infection control, including in general practice, and the wider community.
The research, published in the journal Scientific Reports, was carried out by swabbing the phones of 26 healthcare workers from the paediatric intensive care unit (ICU) and the paediatric department of the Gold Coast University Hospital in Queensland.
The lead author is Lotti Tajouri, an Associate Professor of Genomics and Molecular Biology at Bond University.
He told newsGP the methodology, which included DNA extraction and next generation sequencing, has given more detail of what the ubiquitous devices are harbouring than ever before.
‘What people did in the past was the top tip of an iceberg,’ Associate Professor Tajouri said. ‘And now [with] what we’ve just been publishing, we are looking at almost a full iceberg.
‘By swabbing and having a direct sequencing, we could actually see all the genomes of all the bugs, regardless [of whether] they could be cultured or not.’
Across 26 mobile phones there were a total of 11,163 organisms including 5714 bacteria, 675 fungi, 93 protists, 228 viruses, and 4453 bacteriophages, as well as 2096 genes coding for antibiotic
resistance and virulent factors.
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