Microbial Load, Prevalence and Antibiotics Susceptibility of Bacteria Isolated From Naira Notes

Money is a means of exchange for goods and services. It develops from sales, salaries, ceremonies, compensations, etc. The microbial load, prevalence and antibiotics resistance of bacterial population isolated from the eight Nigerian banknotes were studied. Spread plate method was used to enumerate the bacteria. The microbial load and the antibiotics susceptibility of the bacteria were determined by viable plate count and disc diffusion method, respectively. Nine species of bacteria were isolated in high numbers from the notes most of which were coliforms as well as human pathogens. In composition were Escherichia coli, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Salmonella sp. Shigella sp. Vibrio sp., Staphylococcus aureus, Klebsiella sp., Proteus sp. and Bacillus sp. The polymer notes had less bacterial load than the paper notes. E. coli and Bacillus sp. were isolated from all the denominations except ？1,000 and ？10, respectively. Vibrio sp. and S. aureus occurred on not less than four of the denominations while Salmonella, Klebsiella and Pseudomonas were least in occurrence and were found only on the ？10 and ？5 notes. Shigella sp. and S. aureus resisted eight out of ten of the antibiotics tested with the resistance pattern cip-ery-amp-rif-amo-str-nor-chl and cip-ery-gen-amp-rif-amo-str-chl, respectively. Klebsiella showed resistance to ery-gen-rif-amo-str-nor-chl; whereas Proteus sp., Pseudomonas sp., E. coli and Bacillus sp. resisted cip-ery-lev-amo-rif-str, lev-gen-amp-rif-nor-chl, cip-ery-gen-amo-str-chl, and Lev-Gen-rif-amo-str-nor, respectively; Salmonella sp. resisted cip-ery-gen-str-chl. Vibrio sp. resisted only three of the drugs, ery-lev-amp., the only organism showing high sensitivity in the study. The naira notes harbour loads of pathogens with antibiotics resistance mechanisms that confer them considerable resistance to widely used antibiotics. These research findings call for great caution and strong adherence to good hygiene practices when handling money. It also suggests polymer material as a better raw material for currency production than paper.