Most of the people use trendy and modish wallets wherein you carry currency notes, credit cards and some important cards. Your most alluring wallet is not only bearing crucial belongings, but also carrying dozens of disease-causing micro-organisms. It might be shocking news for you, but it is a fact. A group of scientists had conducted a study on currency notes in denominations of Rs 10, Rs 20 and Rs 100, procured from markets in south Delhi and found that there are disease-causing germs on the notes which can cause harmful diseases. The notes are contaminated with bacteria and could eventually pass on diseases.

Currency Notes – Carriers of Contagious Microbes

A group of Scientists from the Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology (IGIB) which is one of the most popular institutes under the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) have conducted a study on the currency notes and found out this deadly fact. They collected currency notes from the street vendors, grocery stores, hardware shops, snack bars, chemists and some other places where money has changed different person’s hands.

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After collecting the samples of notes, they tested the notes using DNA sequencing technology and a bio-informatics algorithm and found traces of DNA footprints of at least 78 disease-causing micro-organisms on these notes. All these 78 disease-probing bacteria are not found on a single note, but are found on all the notes that were collected.

S Ramachandran, principal scientist of IGIB said, “Our analysis revealed the genetic material on the Indian currency notes roughly has Eukaryotic species such as fungi (70%), bacterial populations (9%) and viruses (<1%). We identified 78 pathogens including Staphylococcus aureus, Enterococcus faecalis.”

The sample notes that were tested are contaminated with micro-organisms wherein most of them were fungi. Even there is bacteria that can cause dysentry (Diarrhoea), tuberculosis and ulcers were also visible.

Possibility of Spreading Diseases

Actually, this was a project led by a group of five students and they were astonished to find traces of so many organisms on the collected sample notes. The study only tested the traces of DNA and got to know the type of organisms with which the notes are contaminated. But, they are not sure whether these microbes have the ability to taint people with harmful diseases as they didn’t study that deeper. Certainly, there is a chance of diseases spreading across people through this way because the scientists say that, the contagious microbes can even travel through currency notes.

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 “Our study is an eye-opener. But it was a small project. We should look at a larger area, use a greater sample and do a more comprehensive study on this,” said Ramachandran.

How to Reduce the Risk?

Just by holding a currency note that is carrying a harmful pathogen cannot make you sick, but in some situations where you eat food without cleaning your hands in a proper manner. Make sure that you clean your hands correctly before consuming any kind of stuff with your bare hands. Remember it as an everyday task between handling money (currency notes) and gulping something.

In many countries like Canada, Australia and the UK, they have introduced polymer bags for transferring banknotes. However, switching to plastic can cause harm to our earth. The other way to reduce the risk of spreading infection is to use only credit and debit cards so that there is no need of currency notes to pass through many hands. Anyway, it is an alert for everyone. Beware!