Antibiotic susceptibility of bacterial pathogens recovered from the hand and mobile phones of university students

Abstract

This study aimed to isolate bacterial pathogens from the dominant hand and mobile phones and to determine their antibiotic susceptibility profiles. The dominant hand and mobile surfaces were swabbed to detect the transmission of bacterial pathogens among university students. Two hundred and twenty hand and mobile phone swabs were collected from the students of four different colleges in a Jordanian university between October and December 2017. The swabs were collected and transported to the Microbiology laboratory within one hour. At the lab, swabs were inoculated on nutrient agar, MacConkey agar, blood agar and mannitol salt agar. The subsequent bacterial isolates were identified by their cultural, morphological and biochemical characteristics. Eight bacterial species were isolated and identified in the current study, namely Staphylococcus epidermidis, Streptococcus pneumoniae, Streptococcus pyogenes, Staphylococcus aureus, Enterococcus faecalis, Bacillus cereus, Micrococcus spp. and Escherichia coli. The percentage of isolated bacteria was 54.5%, 25.5%, 14.5% and 5.5% from veterinary, biology, biomedical engineering and chemistry students, respectively. Many isolates were highly resistant to most tested antibiotics. Pathogenic bacteria were detected with multiple antibiotic resistance indexes. Hands and mobile phones can act as carriers for infectious agents, suggesting the need for proper hand hygiene and disinfecting mobile phones surfaces.