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International Journal of Recent Trends in Science and Technology, ISSN 2277-2812 E-ISSN: 2249-8109

Volume 4, Issue 1, 2012 pp 14-18

Research Article

A Study of Microbial Flora and MRSA Harboured by Mobile Phones of Health Care Personnel

Nikhil N. Tambe¹, Chitra Pai²

{¹II MBBS student, ²Professor, Department of Microbiology}, MGM�s Medical College, Navi Mumbai (MS) INDIA.

Academic Editor:  Dr. Aher K. R.

Mobile phones are increasingly being used by health care workers in day today life. They come incontact with various surfaces while carrying out health care activities and are thus likely to get contaminated by variety of organisms. This study was carried out to know the microbial flora harboured by mobile phones of health care personnel and to know the antibiotic resistance patterns of pathogenic bacteria.

Mobile phones of health care personnel were swabbed and inoculated on enriched and selective media, incubated for 24 hours and a variety of biochemical tests were carried out to know the bacterial and fungal species. Antibiotic sensitivity tests were done for pathogenic bacteria using K irby Bauer disc diffusion method. It was found that out of 120 mobile phones of health care personnel, 99 (82.5%) were contaminated, while 85 (70.8%) harbored pathogenic bacteria. Out of 120 mobile phones; 65 (54.16%) harbored S. aureus, 25 (20.83%) Micrococci, 9(7.5%) Diphtheroids, 5 (4.1%) Enterococci, [4 (3.3%) each] Pseudomonas, Citrobacter and Bacillus, [2(1.6%) each] Acinetobacter, Enterobacter and Streptococcus viridians. S. aureus was resistant to methicillin, amoxicillin, augmentin, erythromycin and lincomycin. [11/65 (16.9%)] Methicillin Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus were isolated from health care providers. Fungi isolated were Candida 8 (6.66%), Aspegillus 6 (5%), Mucor 1 (0.8%) and Trichophyton 1 (0.8%).