Investigating culturable gram positive cocci from the surface of mobile phones with different form factors

Abstract

A total of 99 mobiles phones were grouped according to their form factor that is flip phone and candy bar designs, and their contact surfaces were swabbed and cultured onto both R2A and SPCA media. We usually obtained bacterial abundance between 0-50 cfu cm-2, even though densities up to 490 cfu cm-2 on R2A and 212 cfu cm-2 on SPCA were also recorded. Our study showed that candy bar phones harbored more bacteria, and served as a more important bacterial reservoir as compared to flip phones. Our results also suggested the importance of using mobile phone covers to reduce bacterial abundance. We also found that the Gram positive cocci isolated were similar to the normal flora present on human skin. In this study, more bacterial colonies were consistently found on R2A. R2A was a more suitable isolation medium and performed better for surface microbes.