Bacteriological assessment of naira notes: paper notes compared to polymer notes

Abstract

The possibility of money (paper Naira notes and polymer Naira notes) as a vehicle of transmission of some bacterial diseases especially gastro-intestinal track diseases have been suggested by experts, but presently, there are only few studies and research, as well as few documents to fully implicate and show this bad side of money, thus, there is need for more studies. In this work, a total of forty samples ranging from the lowest denomination (5 Naira) to the highest denomination (1000 Naira) were randomly obtained and exchanged from the targeted group of people which are the beggars (Group A), food handlers/vendors (Group B), open market sellers (Group C), students (Group D), and banks (Group E). Generally, the Bacterial load/count result shows that paper Naira notes had the higher counts (about 3 times) compared to polymer Naira notes. The counts do not significantly (p<=0.05) varies according to targeted groups but varies according to denominations with 100 Naira and 200 Naira (paper notes) having the highest counts while 20 Naira (polymer notes) had the least counts. Isolated bacteria were 13,which included; , , sp, sp, sp, sp, sp, sp, sp, sp, sp, sp and sp. Antibiotic sensitivity result shows that 51.1% of the isolates were resistant and 39% were susceptible. These have shown that Naira notes in circulation are highly contaminated with different types of bacteria and antibiotic resistant level could be a problem in the treatment of diseases caused by these isolates