Citrobacter

• The microbial infection risk of your phone is much less appreciated – but it’s very real.
• All of which can transfer microbes onto your phone along with food deposits for those microbes to eat.
• But given how disgusting and germ-infested phones can be, maybe it’s time to think more about mobile phone hygiene.

Germs, bacteria, viruses

• Hands pick up bacteria and viruses all the time and are recognised as a route for acquiring infection.
• A number of studies conducted on the microbiological colonisation of mobile phones show that they can be contaminated with many different kinds of potentially pathogenic bacteria.
• Phones contain plastic which can harbour and transmit viruses some of which (the common cold virus) can live on hard plastic surfaces for up to a week.
• Other viruses such as COVID-19, rotavirus (a highly infectious stomach bug that typically affects babies and young children), influenza and norovirus – which can cause serious respiratory and gut infections – can persist in an infectable form for several days.

Clean your phone

• Do not spray sanitisers directly onto the phone and keep liquids away from connection points or other phone openings.
• When not at home, keep your phone in your pocket, or bag and use a disposable paper list of to-do items, rather than constantly consulting your phone.
• Touch your phone with clean hands – washed with soap and water or disinfected with alcohol-based hand sanitiser.
• You might also want to occasionally sanitise your phone charger when you are cleaning your phone.