Travellers’ phones a biosecurity weak link – DNA analysis of microbes found on the phones of international travellers has found antibiotic-resistant bacteria and a pathogen which affects crops and can cause septicaemia in native Australian parrots.
https://www.scimex.org/newsfeed/travellers-phones-a-biosecurity-weak-link
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I’ve linked to the news release in the post above. In this comment, for those interested, here’s the link to the peer reviewed journal article:
https://www.idhjournal.com.au/article/S2468-0451(24)00067-1/fulltext
From the linked article:
Travellers’ phones a biosecurity weak link
DNA analysis of microbes found on the phones of international travellers has found antibiotic-resistant bacteria and a pathogen which affects crops and can cause septicaemia in native Australian parrots. Dr Lotti Tajouri of Bond University said the results suggest travellers’ phones should be decontaminated at Australian ports of entry to protect native plants and animals, agriculture and public health.
Would be interesting to see how well they survive radiation (for example from an x-ray machine).
Could an x-ray machine be used to sterilise them or is the dose just not high enough? How high would the dose need to be?
One look at the graphs in the paper makes me completely discount any findings.