Microorganisms Associated with Mutilated Naira Notes in Benin-City, Nigeria

Microorganisms associated with mutilated naira notes in Benin City, Nigeria were determined using 10-fold serial dilution tube method. This study was aimed at isolating, identifying and determining the level of contamination with microorganisms of mutilated naira notes in circulation in Benin City. A total of forty (40) samples of Nigerian naira notes consisting of five (5) pieces each of naira (#) denominations (5, 10, 20, 50, 100, 200, 500 and 1, 000 notes) were collected from volunteers (petty traders, beggars, motor conductors, students and food vendors). The bacterial isolates had a total count of 147cfu/ml and the fungal isolates had a total count of 96cfu/ml. The total percentage occurrence of the bacteria isolate was 779% with 5 and 1000 naira notes having the highest total bacterial percentage occurrence of 100.1% and 200 naira note has the lowest total bacterial percentage occurrence of 79%. The total percentage occurrence of the fungal isolate was 721.2% with 10, 20, 200 and 500 naira notes having the highest total fungal percentage occurrence of 100.0% and 1000 naira notes has the lowest total fungal percentage occurrence of 75%. Escherichia coli had the highest bacterial percentage occurrence of 28.5% followed by Staphylococcus aureus (25.8%), Streptococcus sp. (16.2%), Pseudomonas sp. (18.3%) and Bacillus sp. (11.5%). Aspergillus niger had the highest fungal percentage occurrence of 30.2% followed by Penicillium sp (29.5%), Rhizopus sp. (26.5%) and Trichoderma sp. (13.8%). The contamination of naira notes with microorganisms showed that these organisms are widely distributed in the environment and are associated with humans. Personal hygiene of handling naira notes should be encouraged and the Nigeria CBN should put in place a retrieval system, which will ensure that mutilated notes do not remain in circulation for too long.