Pathogenic Bacteria Isolated from Personal Cell Phones of Health Care Staff in Iraqi Hospitals

Cell phones are indispensable accessories both professionally and socially, but they also play role as perfect substrate for microorganisms’ transitions. Therefor; Health care workers mobile phones are one of the most important vehicles which transfer nosocomial infection agents in particular pathogenic multi-resist bacteria. Thus, this study aims at examining and conducting of cell phones which could play a potential role in the extent of bacterial pathogens mainly nosocomial bacteria in Iraqi hospitals. Therefore, 102 cell phone samples were collected from patients, doctors and Health care staff working in hospital by Sterile cotton swab on the surface of cell phone and directly sited in liquid media. The samples staking on the Blood and MacConkey agar media were used for bacterial species isolation then identified via Vitek 2 Compact ID/AST cards from BioMיrieux. Bacteria species were isolated from 93 of the studied cell phones: Coagulase negative Staphylococci epidermidis (28%), then Escherichia coli (22%), Klebsiella pneumonia (16%), Pseudomonas aeruginosa (13%), Staphylococcus aureus (12%), Bacilli (5%), Enterobacter (3%), and Proteus spp. (1%). And 80% of the bacteria are resistant to antibiotics, predominantly the bacteria isolated from Nurse and Doctor phones. This study shows the potential of cell phones to be developed as pathogenic bacteria carriers