Bacterial Contaminants and Antibiogram of Ghana paper currency notes in circulation and its associated Health risks in Asante-Mampong, Ghana

Abstract Transmission of pathogens through currency notes has become very relevant in today’s world due to Covid-19 pandemic. This study profiled microbial flora and their antibiotics activities from Ghana paper currency (GH¢) notes in circulation in Mampong Municipal of Ashanti Region, Ghana. The study employed a cross-sectional design to assess bacterial contaminants and their antibiotics activities from January to May 2019. A total of 70 GH¢ notes consisting of 15 each of GH₵1, GH₵2, and GH₵5; 10 each of GH₵10 and GH₵20 and 5 of GH₵50 were randomly sampled from persons at different shops, canteens and commercial drivers. The surfaces of each GH¢ note were gently swabbed and a ten-fold serial dilutions made inoculated on Plate Count Agar (PCA), MacConkey Agar, Mannitol Salt Agar and Desoxycholate Citrate Agar. The study used appropriate laboratory and biochemical tests for bacteria identification. SPSS-IBM version 16.0 was used to analyze the data. Of the 70 GH¢ notes studied, 97.1% were contaminated with one or more bacterial isolates. Mean counts on PCA ranged between 3.2 cfu/ml x 105 and 4.7 cfu/ml x 105 on GH¢ notes. Of 124 bacteria isolated; 34(27.4%), 30(24.2%), 22(17.7%), 17(13.7%), and 8(6.5%) were from GH¢1, GH¢2, GH¢10, GH¢5, GH¢20 and GH¢50 respectively [p<0.05]. Bacterial isolates were; Escherichia coli (28.23%), Staphylococcus auerus (16.94%), Coagulase-negative Staphylococcus (16.13%), Klebsiella species (11.29%), Salmonella species (9.68%), Shigella species (8.87%), Pseudomonas aeruginosa (5.65%), and Proteus species (3.23%). GH¢ notes had 25.81%, 20.16%, 19.35%, 17.74% and 16.94% from meat shops, commercial drivers, canteens, grocery shops, and vegetable shops in that order. All bacteria were 100% resistant to erythromycin, 87.5% to tetracycline, chloramphenicol, and cotrimoxazole; 75% to vancomycin while 87.50% sensitive to amikacin. The GH¢ notes were heavily colonized with potential pathogens which are resistant to most commonly used antibiotics and could pose health threat to users during commercial transactions.