Beware, dirty notes can make you ill!

When next you handle a dirty currency, try and smell it. You’ll be surprised at how irritating to the nose it could be!

We are talking about any currency here, and not just the naira. However, because the majority of us only have access to our legal tender, we might as well focus on the naira.

The way the local sellers, especially the market women, handle the naira notes range from bizarre to the ridiculous.

Have you ever been handed money that was drawn directly out of the brassieres? Say, how does it feel holding money that has been soaked in someone’s sweat?

What about butchers who habitually smear money with blood of animals? Give them a neat note and right in your presence, they will smear it with blood, sending the pollution course in motion immediately.

As for bus conductors, if the naira could talk, it would cry foul each time those uncouth commercial bus conductors and the drivers use it to wipe sweat or clean dirty nose!

To some people, the naira note comes handy for picking ears. They simply roll it up and use the sharp edge to draw out ear wax.

And, what about people who lick their fingers repeatedly just to be able to separate the notes as they count money!

How often do you come across badly soiled naira, even when you withdraw money from the ATM? Usually, what comes out of the ATM are limp, torn and smelly notes that should have been withdrawn from circulation ages ago!

Yet, apart from the national shame that we feel each time we come across these badly handled notes, physicians are saying that dirty currencies are fully of germs that readily transit from hand to hand, such that no one could escape getting infected once you handle the money.

Germs and pathogens on money

When a child is playing with money, the average adult is only concerned about the money not getting lost. We hardly think of the possible ill health that could result from having an encounter with soiled notes!

Yet, unlike other commodities that could be neglected if found lying carelessly on the floor, the average person would pick up money, even if it perches atop a mound of poop! And when such money lands in your palm, you have no way of knowing how far it has travelled before it gets to you.

As such, it is dangerous to get careless with money by using your lips to hold it, for instance, while searching for something in your bag; or by allowing a child to play with money unsupervised.

A virologist with the Ministry of Health, Dr. Tolu Samuel, says the way the naira is treated leaves no one in doubt that each note carries thousands of several types of bacteria on its surface.

She says that without any fear of contradiction, the common bacteria that are likely to be found on dirty notes include the types that will be found in the mouth, bum and poop.

Elaborating further, the scientist says the act of licking the fingers when counting money introduces microbes that reside in the mouth; while those who don’t clean their hands properly after each bathroom use are responsible for the bacteria that are traceable to the private parts and poop.

She adds that though many viruses and bacteria cannot survive on any surface — including money surface — for more than 48 hours, live flu virus can survive on paper money for up to 17 days!

She says this is because, even without playing dirty with a currency, the human hands are colonised by millions of bacteria; and because money exchanges hands frequently, it is easy to pass pathogens around as money exchanges hands!

She counsels, “While scientists are not able to categorically say how much money aids in the transmission of disease-causing bacteria, common sense dictates that you should wash your hands after handling money, just the way you do after using the bathroom.”

Samuel warns that with the way some naira notes are heavily soiled, she wouldn’t be surprised to find multi-drug resistant pathogens on any of them if taken to the laboratory for analysis.

“What this suggests is that the population is exposed to the risk of not having effective prevention and treatment of a range of infections caused by bacteria, parasites, viruses and fungi,” Samuel warns.

Indeed, scientists warn that patients who have infections that are caused by drug-resistant bacteria are generally at increased risk of worse clinical outcomes, including death!

Have you ever taken ill after eating out, even in a swanky restaurant? It happens quite frequently and we sometimes think it’s because we developed sensitivity to the food.

Well, may be; as researchers warn that those who prepare food after handling contaminated currency notes have a higher risk of infecting themselves and others with food-borne pathogens such as shigella and salmonella.

Samuel says when you contact either salmonella or shigella, it can lead to abdominal cramps, bloody diarrhoea and fever, which will require medical attention without delay.

“What this translates into is that those who handle food must be careful to wash their hands after handling money. Otherwise, they may transfer disease pathogens that are on the surface of money into food. The situation is worse when that food wouldn’t need to be cooked before eating,” the virologist says.

The bottom line: Wash your hands frequently.

PUNCH.