Our mobile phones are covered in bacteria and viruses… and we never wash them
Channel: The Conversation
Date: 2021-09-13

Following a personal emergency, Dr Lotti Tajouri began investigating the bacteria and viruses we carry on the surface of our mobile phones, and particularly those used by medical staff in hospitals. 
The results were staggering: more than half of staff surveyed in a Queensland hospital admitted to using their phones in the toilet, despite almost all respondents admitting they knew their phones were probably contaminated. And most never clean their phones.
Watch to find out the story behind Lotti's area of research, what he and is colleagues found on swabbed phones and advice about how we can keep our phones clean at home and in the workplace.

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Produced and illustrated by Wes Mountain
Videography by Tim Delmastro (Bond University)
Video edited by Chynthia Wijaya

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Papers cited in the video: 

Olsen, M., Lohning, A., Campos, M. et al. Mobile phones of paediatric hospital staff are never cleaned and commonly used in toilets with implications for healthcare nosocomial diseases. Sci Rep 11, 12999 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-92360-3

Tajouri L, Campos M, Olsen M, Lohning A, Jones P, Moloney S, Grimwood K, Ugail H, Mahboub B, Alawar H, McKirdy S, Alghafri R. The role of mobile phones as a possible pathway for pathogen movement, a cross-sectional microbial analysis. Travel Med Infect Dis. 2021 Sep-Oct;43:102095. doi: 10.1016/j.tmaid.2021102095. Epub 2021 Jun 9. PMID: 34116242.