A study of 67 mobile phones belonging to health care workers showed that touchscreen mobile phones are less contaminated than their keypad counterparts, and less likely to harbour pathogenic bacteria.
Colony counts were significantly higher on the keypad phones. Nine (13%) phones grew either meticillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus or vancomycin resistant enterococci. Eight (24%) keypad phones were contaminated with these organisms compared with one touch screen phone (3%).
The study can be found at Journal of Infection Prevention March 2013 14: 65-68, doi:10.1177/1757177413475903
