Microbiological Assessment of Smartphone Surfaces Obtained from Final Year Students at Hezekiah University Umudi, Nkwerre, Imo State, Nigeria.

Abstract

Smartphones of students in tertiary institutions have been described as an understudied and under-explored microcosm by leading public health experts. The microbial quality of smartphone surfaces has been a constant reason for several scientific discussions. Two hundred students were initially targeted for the study, ten students in the final year class at the Hezekiah University Umudi permitted access to their phones during the sampling. The study carried by swabbing the surface of their phones with a normal saline-moistened swab stick using a square quadrant. The content was dislodged and diluted using a 10-fold serial dilution technique. The samples were evaluated for total heterotrophic count, coliform, fungal and Staphylococcal count. The bacterial isolates were tentatively identified using biochemical reactions. The total heterotrophic count of the samples obtained from the male students ranged from Log 2.82 CFU/cm2 to Log 3.21 CFU/cm2 while the total coliform count was observed to range from Log 1.3 CFU/cm2 to Log 1.6 CFU/cm2. The total heterotrophic count ranged from Log 2.82 CFU/cm2 to Log 3.21 CFU/cm2 for male students and from Log 1.6 CFU/cm2 to Log 2.73 CFU/cm2 for female students. The isolates obtained from the study were Acinetobacter sp., Escherichia coli, Proteus sp., Klebsiella sp., Pseudomonas sp. and Staphylococcus sp. There is a need for the University to educate students on the need to routinely use alcohol-based wipes to clean the surfaces of their phones as a precautionary measure to limit diseases associated with the use of mobile phones.