Mobile phones represent a pathway for microbial transmission: A scoping review.
Travel Med Infect Dis
; 35: 101704, 2020.
Article
in English
| MEDLINE | ID: covidwho-639689
ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND:
Mobile phones have become an integral part of modern society. As possible breeding grounds for microbial organisms, these constitute a potential global public health risk for microbial transmission.OBJECTIVE:
Scoping review of literature examining microbial's presence on mobile phones in both health care (HC) and community settings.METHODS:
A search (PubMed&GoogleScholar) was conducted from January 2005-December 2019 to identify English language studies. Studies were included if samples from mobile phones were tested for bacteria, fungi, and/or viruses; and if the sampling was carried out in any HC setting, and/or within the general community. Any other studies exploring mobile phones that did not identify specific microorganisms were excluded.RESULTS:
A total of 56 studies were included (from 24 countries). Most studies identified the presence of bacteria (54/56), while 16 studies reported the presence of fungi. One study focused solely on RNA viruses. Staphylococcus aureus, and Coagulase-Negative Staphylococci were the most numerous identified organisms present on mobile phones. These two species and Escherichia coli were present in over a third of studies both in HC and community samples. Methicillin-resistant S. aureus, Acinetobacter sp., and Bacillus sp. were present in over a third of the studies in HC settings.CONCLUSIONS:
While this scoping review of literature regarding microbial identification on mobile phones in HC and community settings did not directly address the issue of SARS-CoV-2 responsible for COVID-19, this work exposes the possible role of mobile phones as a 'Trojan horse' contributing to the transmission of microbial infections in epidemics and pandemics.Keywords
Full text:
Available
Collection:
International databases
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
Pneumonia, Viral
/
Cross Infection
/
Coronavirus Infections
/
Community-Acquired Infections
/
Cell Phone
/
Pandemics
Type of study:
Prognostic study
/
Randomized controlled trials
/
Reviews
Limits:
Humans
Language:
English
Journal:
Travel Med Infect Dis
Journal subject:
Communicable Diseases
Year:
2020
Document Type:
Article
Affiliation country:
J.tmaid.2020.101704
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