Computer viruses got you panicky? Here’s something else to worry about.
The bugs might not all be in your computer. Some of them might be in your keyboard — and they may affect your health, not just the health of your laptop or desktop.
That’s the word from researchers at AOL-UK, which reports the average computer keyboard accumulates up to two grams of dirt every month — including some of the harmful biological kind.
Crumbs, the report says, are a common contaminant. They gather under keys because some users eat over their terminals.
Personal grooming adds to the build-up of “grunge,” which could include other matter ranging from grease, noodles and urine, and from dog hair to dust mites, one survey showed.
This means, the report says, the average keyboard is potentially a fertile breeding ground for bacteria. Although research in this area is scarce, keyboards in medical settings have been analyzed.
At the Tripler Army Medical Center in Honolulu earlier this year, a team of infectious-disease specialists took cultures from computer keyboards in the intensive-care unit, reports the South China Morning Post. They found that a quarter harbored a strain of bacterium which hospital officials particularly dread — multi-drug-resistant staphyloccocus aureus.
Other medical centers found, after the installation of computers, rare disease-causing funguses in the dust on computer equipment.
Keyboards in homes, offices and cyber cafes also are potentially infectious, the report says. Users who cough or sneeze into their hands before or between typing often transmit bacteria to the keyboard.
Why are keyboards such a threat to human health?
Calculators, steering wheels, pens, even toothbrushes are often coated with germ killers. But computer keyboard rarely are.
One of Britain’s leading infection experts, Professor Hugh Pennington from the University of Aberdeen, says there is no cause for panic. He suggests exposure to harmful germs is rare because those deposited on keys die off fast. But Carl Batt, a professor in microbiology at New York’s Cornell University, disagrees. He claims viruses that cause colds could survive on keyboards for long enough to be transmitted.
“The mucus residue from a sneeze can be a ready source of cross-contamination,” he said.
Cyber cafes can be particularly risky “since food is obviously a component of the ambience.”
