ISSN: 2641-9459
Authors: Majumder S*, Mazumdar S, Pyne A, Das A, Sadhukhan A and Mitra AK
The lack of proper sanitation and hygiene over the years has contributed to a rapid increase in communicable diseases, especially in developing nations like India. This problem warrants investigation of the potential routes responsible for transmitting microbes and infections to an individual. In this study, we have assessed bacterial and fungal load in covered (with flip covers) and uncovered (without flip covers) mobile phones, and the potential transfer of these microbes from phone surfaces to human palm surfaces. The bacterial load (in cfu) in mobile phones with flip covers was 13-fold higher than that of the uncovered phones meanwhile, the fungal load was relatively higher in the uncovered phones. The transfer of bacterial population (in cfu) from the covered mobile phones to the palm surfaces was 14.5-fold higher than that of the uncovered phones. Similarly, fungal transfer was relatively higher from the uncovered phones to the palm surfaces. We further developed a novel alcohol-based Humectant-Hand-Sanitizer (HH-sanitizer) and its sanitization efficiency (in %) was compared with one of the most popular Hygiene products in India, Dettol, against microbes obtained from human palm surfaces (before and after rubbing over mobile phones), and a group of opportunistic pathogens: Enterobacter aerogenes, Escherichia coli, Klebsiella pneumoniae, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Staphylococcus aureus, Enterococcus sp., Bacillus cereus, Listeria monocytogenes, Candida albicans, and Aspergillus sp. The sanitization efficiency (SE %) of the HH-sanitizer on palm surfaces was 98.78±1.82% and 91.27±4.24% against bacterial and fungal isolates respectively, whereas the SE % for the Dettol sanitizer was 94.62% against bacteria and 45.89% against fungi. In vitro antimicrobial assessment against the tested organisms showed the minimum inhibitory concentration of the HH-sanitizer to be 8-fold lower than the Dettol sanitizer. Thus, the HH-sanitizer has the potentiality to be an alternative option. Since bacterial adherence to mobile phones with flip covers and their transfer to human hands was significantly higher and as the common infections, we are prone to are caused more by bacteria than fungus, either way, avoidance of flip covers in phones/laptops/tablets, etc. is recommended to avoid transmittable infections and achieve better hygiene.
Keywords: Public Health and Hygiene; Communicable/Transmittable Disease; Mobile Phones; Human Palm Surfaces; Microbial Adherence; Opportunistic Pathogens; Sanitization Efficiency; Humectant-Hand-Sanitizer; Dettol Hand Sanitizer
