Aside your mobile phone and your wallet, I struggle to think of anything you handle as many times in a day as you do money. Down here in Africa, at least; over 90% of transactions are completed using cold, hard, cash.
On some level we’re all probably aware that it’s not the cleanest substance, but that’s largely subconscious. After handling money no one does any stringent cleaning, such as you would after, for instance, visiting the loo.
A new study from the University of Surrey makes for grim reading though, and maybe we should be more careful after handling money. The study, reported in The Mirror, shows that currency retains a hell of a lot of bacteria, some of which could be disease causing organisms.
Students from the University of Surrey took the monies they had on them and submerged it in agar, a substance that allows bacteria to grow quickly.
What they found was thousand of bacteria colonies on the currency, both coins and notes alike. The most common bacteria they found was a harmless type, but they also found strains that could cause boils and spots on the skin, food poisoning bacteria and the MRSA strain of bacterium.
Another common find was the staphylococcus aureus, which is found in the nose. Seems a person picking their nose, and then handling their money, is far more common than you might realise.
Dr Simon Park, head of molecular biology at Surrey and head of the project, summed it up.
“We found that money, be it coins or notes, harbours very large numbers of bacteria. It is something that we all share so it passes through many many different hands, washed and unwashed.
It also gets kept in warm and moist pockets, which offer perfect conditions for bacterial growth and survival.
Consequently, the populations of bacteria on currency are much larger and more diverse, and money is likely to carry disease causing bacteria.”
So the next time you handle money, you might wanna be more careful where you put your hands afterwards. Especially Ghana money; half of which look like they’ve really had a hard time on this planet (Not to judge, but I’m looking at you driver’s mates, market women, and charcoal sellers)