Yesterday a producer from BBC Three Counties Radio came to the office having dismantled a presenter’s (Lorna’s) desk – the mission was me to swab it to see how dirty the keyboard, microphone pop shield (sponge thing on the end of a microphone) and headphones were. The producer then asked me to talk to the presenters at 7.20 am this morning to tell them the news! Using the systemSURE ATP monitoring device that we use for many restaurants, hotels and factories to test cleanliness of critical areas instantly, I got the results…. Lorna was horrified that the items from her desk were far from clean. The typical standard for a food surface would be less than 10 RLUs (light units) for a satisfactory results, and anything over 30 would be unacceptable. In a hotel room, then maybe 100 would be acceptable. But this is what we found:
Keyboard: 887
Headphones: 1606
Pop shield: 1817
We gave the producer two Proclean swabs to see instantly whether they had dirty surfaces in their studio – unfortunately I had to get on a train at that point, so I don’t know what they found!
Whilst this was a bit of fun, it highlighted that the items had become rather dirty. The serious part of this is that if any of the cells we recovered had been dangerous bacteria or viruses, they could be transmitted to the user. Therefore where such items are shared, then they should be cleaned from time to time to reduce the risk of infection, and also if someone is ill with a cough or cold, then more vigilant cleaning should take place to make sure that diseases are not spread around the work-place. Above all, hand washing is really important.
What had prompted the BBC radio piece is the fact that tomorrow is Global Hand washing day, and to mark this researchers at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and Queen Mary, University of London had taken nearly 400 samples from mobile phones and hands in 12 British cities. They found 16% of phones and 16% of hands harboured E. coli (Escherichia coli), bacteria which inhabit the human intestines. The largest proportion of contaminated phones was in Birmingham (41%) while Londoners were caught with the highest proportion of E. coli present on hands (28%).
The clear message is that we all need to remember that hand-washing one of the most important measures of preventing infectious disease, and that we all have a responsibility to participate, particularly after using the toilet – it appears that many of those people in the survey had not bothered. Yuk!
Proclean and systemSURE products are available from Hygiene Audit Systems.
