Mobile devices and accessories are reservoir for drug-resistant bacteria among university students a cross-sectional study

Chinyere Ezeanya-Bakpa, Opeyemi Shorumu, Tomiwa Ogunsoluju

Department of Microbiology and Biotechnology, Caleb University Lagos, Nigeria

Refer this article

Chinyere Ezeanya-Bakpa , Opeyemi Shorumu, Tomiwa Ogunsoluju, 2022. Mobile devices and accessories are reservoir for drug-resistant bacteria among university students a cross-sectional study. Journal of medical pharmaceutical and allied sciences, V 11 - I 6, Pages - 5494 – 5499. Doi: 10.55522/jmpas. V11I6.4217.

ABSTRACT

The use of mobile phones and earplugs among students have become popular and are easy route for drug-resistant bacteria. This study aimed to determine the bacterial contamination on mobile phones and earplugs with their antibiotic resistance pattern among University students in Lagos, Nigeria. A total of 100 phone and earplug swab samples were collected. The samples were cultured on different appropriate growth media. Bacterial identification was done according to the standard bacterial procedures for identification. A total of 196 bacterial isolates were recovered from both devices and further subjected to antibiotic susceptibility testing against 11 commonly used antibiotics using disc diffusion method. This study revealed that mobile phones and earplugs had bacterial contamination of 48.5% and 51.5% respectively. Eleven bacterial species were identified which included Klebisella pneumoniae (27%), Staphylococcus aureus (15.8%), Enterobacter aerogenes (12.8%), Proteus mirabilis (9.7%), Escherichia coli (7.7%). The resistance pattern varied with 128 bacterial isolates highly resistant to cotrimoxazole (65.3%). Furthermore, 24.5%, 26.0% and 6.6% were multidrug-resistant, resistant to third generation cephalosporin among Enterbacteriaceae and methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus respectively. This study’s findings shows mobile phones and earplugs of university students were contaminated with drug-resistant pathogenic bacteria. Therefore, frequent or constant use of these devices, sharing and keeping of long nails is discouraged to control the spread of drug-resistant pathogenic bacteria.

Keywords:

Mobile Devices, Earplugs, Methicillin-Resistant, Drug-Resistant Bacteria

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