Microbial Load And Public Health Risks of Contaminated Keypads of Selected Automated Teller Machines of Some Banks in Abraka-Nigeria.

Abstract

In a fast-paced world like ours, the use of Automated teller machines has become  necessary to carry out financial transactions daily. The contamination of such machines raises serious public health concerns for users, as microorganisms thrive everywhere. This study is aimed at microbiologically evaluating the keypads of automated teller machines of some banks in Abraka-Nigeria. A total of 32 sterile swab sticks moistened with normal saline were used to swab the keypads of each ATM at different time intervals (morning and evening), after which the swab sticks were transferred immediately to the laboratory and analysed using standard microbiological methods. The bacterial counts ranged from 2.5 x 10°to 9.4.x 10° cfu/ml, while the fungal counts ranged from 1.4 x 10° to 6.9 x 10° cfu/ml. The bacterial contaminants were Escherichia coli, Staphylococcus aureus, Bacillus cereus, Citrobacter sp., Enterobacter sp., and Klebsiella sp., while the fungal isolates were Candida sp., Penicillin notatum, Aspergillus fumigatus, Aspergillus niger, and Mucor sp. Bacillus cereus had the highest frequency of occurrence, which accounted for 80.00% while Enterobacter sp. occurred the least and accounted for 30.00% among the bacterial isolates. Although Candida sp. had the highest occurrence rate of 80.00%, Penicillin notatum had the lowest frequency of occurrence among the fungi. Most of the microorganisms isolated can give rise to disease conditions, especially the enteric bacteria, which are easily picked up by the fingers. It is therefore necessary that hands are washed after coming in contact with ATM keypads and proper hygiene habits are practised in order to forestall cross contamination of pathogenic microbes.