ArticleTravel medicine and infectious disease
Mobile phones represent a pathway for microbial transmission: A scoping review.
Article in Travel medicine and infectious disease. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 44 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
44 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Acceptability, Needs, Concerns, and Barriers to Digital-Based Interventions for the Prevention of Mother-to-Child Transmission of HIV: Systematic Review and Qualitative Meta-Aggregation.JMIR medical informatics · 2025Pooled it
- Study of Microbial Contamination of Mobile Phones of Dental and Medical Students and Its Potential Epidemiological Implications for Microbial Transmission.Life (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- High efficiency of 70% isopropanol in reducing microbial contamination on healthcare workers' smartphone surfaces: a pre-post study in Peru.Antimicrobial resistance and infection control · 2026Article
- Hand-mobile phone culture-burden associations and taxon-level concordance among healthcare-associated personnel: a paired cross-sectional study.Frontiers in cellular and infection microbiology · 2026Article
- Survey of Hand Hygiene, High-Touch Device Use, and Proper Habits of Health Care Workers for Infection Risk Prevention: Protocol for a Cross-Sectional Study.JMIR research protocols · 2025Article
- Exploring Multidrug-Resistant Gram-Positive Bacteria on Electronic Devices: A Comparative Experimental Study Based on the Gender of Healthcare and Nonhealthcare Workers.The Canadian journal of infectious diseases & medical microbiology = Journal canadien des maladies infectieuses et de la microbiologie medicale · 2025Article
- Exploring the Effectiveness of Hydrophobic Glass Surface on Touch-Enabled Digital Device to Reduce Microbial Adhesion and Propagation.Journal of pharmacy & bioallied sciences · 2024Article
- Reservoirs of Nosocomial Pathogens in Intensive Care Units: A Systematic Review.Environmental health insights · 2024Review
- Ultraviolet-C-based sanitization is a cost-effective option for hospitals to manage health care-associated infection risks from high touch mobile phones.Frontiers in health services · 2024Article
- Methods to assess antibacterial, antifungal and antiviral surfaces in relation to touch and droplet transfer: a review, gap-analysis and suggested approaches.Access microbiology · 2024Review
- Robots in travel clinics: building on tourism's use of technology and robots for infection control during a pandemic.Tropical diseases, travel medicine and vaccines · 2023Review
- Ultraviolet-C-Based Mobile Phone Sanitisation for Global Public Health and Infection Control.Microorganisms · 2023Article
- Can photocatalysis help in the fight against COVID-19 pandemic?Current opinion in green and sustainable chemistry · 2023Review
- Contamination by Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria on Cell Phones of Vendors in a Peruvian Market.Medicina (Kaunas, Lithuania) · 2023Article
- Article
- [Viruses present in the environment: virological considerations and examples of their impact on human health].Revue francophone des laboratoires : RFL · 2023Article
- Mobile Phones: Reservoirs of Resistant Bacteria during the COVID-19 Pandemic in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.Microorganisms · 2023Article
- Smartphones as an Ecological Niche of Microorganisms: Microbial Activities, Assembly, and Opportunistic Pathogens.Microbiology spectrum · 2022Article
- Fungal contamination of medical students' mobile phones from the University of Belgrade, Serbia: a cross-sectional study.Scientific reports · 2022Article
- Mobile phones are hazardous microbial platforms warranting robust public health and biosecurity protocols.Scientific reports · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
9 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundMobile phones have become an integral part of modern society. As possible breeding grounds for microbial organisms, these constitute a potential global public health risk for microbial transmission.
objectiveScoping review of literature examining microbial's presence on mobile phones in both health care (HC) and community settings.
methodsA search (PubMed&GoogleScholar) was conducted from January 2005-December 2019 to identify English language studies. Studies were included if samples from mobile phones were tested for bacteria, fungi, and/or viruses; and if the sampling was carried out in any HC setting, and/or within the general community. Any other studies exploring mobile phones that did not identify specific microorganisms were excluded.
resultsA total of 56 studies were included (from 24 countries). Most studies identified the presence of bacteria (54/56), while 16 studies reported the presence of fungi. One study focused solely on RNA viruses. Staphylococcus aureus, and Coagulase-Negative Staphylococci were the most numerous identified organisms present on mobile phones. These two species and Escherichia coli were present in over a third of studies both in HC and community samples. Methicillin-resistant S. aureus, Acinetobacter sp., and Bacillus sp. were present in over a third of the studies in HC settings.
conclusionsWhile this scoping review of literature regarding microbial identification on mobile phones in HC and community settings did not directly address the issue of SARS-CoV-2 responsible for COVID-19, this work exposes the possible role of mobile phones as a 'Trojan horse' contributing to the transmission of microbial infections in epidemics and pandemics.
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What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.