The mobile phones of hospital healthcare workers are frequently contaminated with bacteria and fungi, including nosocomial pathogens, a Turkish research team reports in the BMC journal Annals of Clinical Microbiology and Antimicrobials.

Dr. Fatma Ulger and colleagues at Ondokuz Mayis University, Samsun, cultured the dominant hand and the mobile phones of 200 physicians, nurses, and other healthcare staff working in intensive care units and operating rooms.

They found that 95% of telephones were contaminated, often with more than one species. Approximately half of the Staphylococcus aureus isolates were resistant to methicillin, while one third of Gram negative rods were resistant to ceftazidime. Isolated microorganisms from hands and phones were similar.

Of the nosocomial pathogens isolated from phones in intensive care units, the report indicates, 33% were staphylococci, 21% were nonfermentative Gram negative rods, 21% were coliforms, 7% were enterococci, and 12% were yeasts.

Upon questioning the study participants, Dr. Ulger’s team found that 90% never cleaned their mobile phones. Thus, they conclude, mobile phones “may facilitate transmission of bacterial isolates from patient to patient in wards or hospitals.”

They recommend routine decontamination of mobile phones with alcohol-containing disinfectants. “In the future,” they add, “another way of reducing bacterial contamination on mobile phones might be the use of antimicrobial additive materials.

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