Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2018 Sep-Oct;34(5):1225-1230.
doi: 10.12669/pjms.345.15477.

Bacterial contamination of Pakistani currency notes from hospital and community sources

Hasan Ejaz  1 , Azra Javeed  2 , Muhammad Zubair  3
Affiliations

Bacterial contamination of Pakistani currency notes from hospital and community sources

Hasan Ejaz et al. Pak J Med Sci. 2018 Sep-Oct.

Abstract

Objective: We determined the bacterial contamination and antibiotic resistance profile of circulating Pakistani currency notes collected from hospital and community sources.

Methods: This prospective study was organized from July to December 2015 in the Microbiology Department of The Children's Hospital and The Institute of Child Health Lahore. It was done on one hundred currency notes of four different denominations collected from various groups of people in sterile polythene bags. Gram staining, colony morphology and various biochemical tests were used to identify the bacterial isolates. Kirby Bauer disc diffusion method was used to observe the antibacterial drug resistance.

Results: There were 11 different types of bacterial species which contaminated 97 (97%) currency notes. The bacterial isolates discovered from paper currency notes included Klebsiella spp. (26.0%), Coagulase-negative Staphylococci (CoNS) (18.3%), E. coli (14.5%), Pseudomonas spp. (13.7%), Citrobacter spp. (11.5%), Enterobacter spp. (5.3%), Acinetobacter spp. (5.3%), Streptococcus spp. (2.3%), Shigella spp. (1.5%), Salmonella spp. (0.8%) and Pantoea spp. (0.8%). Most of the Gram-positive isolates were resistant to penicillin and ampicillin. None of the Gram-negative isolates found to be resistant to amikacin, cefoperazone-sulbactam and piperacillin-tazobactam.

Conclusion: The currency notes circulating in hospital and community are contaminated with highly pathogenic and some multi-drug resistant bacteria. These currency notes could be a potential source of nosocomial and community-acquired infections.

Keywords: Bacteria; Banknotes; Contamination; Pakistani currency.

PubMed Disclaimer

References

    1. Barolia SK, Verma S, Verma BK. Coliform contamination on different paper currency in Ajmer, Rajasthan, India. Univers J Environ Res Technol. 2011;1(4):552–556.
    1. Gabriel J. Infusion therapy part two:prevention and management of complications. Nurs Stand. 2008;22(32):41–50. doi:10.7748/ns2008.04.22.32.41.c6447. - PubMed
    1. Badvi JA, Jawed K, Jawed M. Lower Denomination and Dirty Currency Carries More Contaminated than Higher Denomination in Pakistan. Int J Vaccin. 2017;4(3):1–8. doi:10.15406/ijvv.2017.04.00082.
    1. Neel R. Isolation of pathogenic microorganisms from contaminated paper currency notes in circulation from different market places in Korogwe and Mombo towns in Tanzania. J Microb Biotechnol Res. 2017;2(3):470–474.
    1. Pal K, Das NS, Bhattacharya S. Bacteriological profile of Indian currency circulating in a tertiary care hospital in rural Bengal. IJRRMS. 2013;3(2):23–30.

LinkOut - more resources