Submission Date	: Apr 11,2015
Acceptance Date	: June 22,2015
Publishing Date	: June 30 ,2015
Type of Paper	: Research Article
Mode of Access	: Open Access
Author	: Farah Rami Saleh
Affiliation	:Department of Medical Laboratory Techniques/ Shaqlawa Technical Institute/Erbil, Iraq
Country	:Iraq
Contact	:[email protected]

Abstract

As any other object, Computer keyboards can harbor many pathogenic and non pathogenic germs and therefore can serve as a source of disease transmission. 45 samples from computer keyboards located in Hospital, teaching lab and home computers were collected, in order to study the contamination degree and bacterial diversity as well as the efficiency of using alcohol wipes to clean keyboards. Results show that 93.3% of the studied keyboardswere contaminated with different types of bacteria. Staphylococcus Spp. Was found in 53.5% of the whole isolates, coliform bacteria which includes E.coli and Klebsiella comes next with 22.5%, while Bacillus Spp. and Pseudomonas Spp. were found in 21% and 2.8%, respectively.The highest rate of contamination were on the keyboards of labs computers, followed by the keyboards from hospitals, while the lowest rate of contamination was on the keyboards of home computers. Alcohol wipes were showing high efficiency in cleaning keyboards and reducing contamination during the study.