Background: Nosocomial infections continue to pose increased mortality and morbidity in patients. The mobile phone and hands of health professionals may harbor many harmful pathogens which can serve as reservoir of infections. Objective: In this study, we investigated the rate of microbial contamination of mobile phones and hands of health professionals in our tertiary care hospital. Methods: In this study we took 320 samples from different wards, ICUs and OT staff. The samples were taken from 2 groups i.e. doctors and nursing staff. Swabs were taken from dominant hands and mobile phones. Culture and antibiotic susceptibility was carried out as per standard microbiological procedures. Results: From 160 samples of mobile phones and hands each, 70.62% and 64.37% of swabs demonstrated evidence of microbial contamination with different type of organisms, respectively. Most commonly found organisms were coagulase negative staphylococci (46.7%). Established nosocomial pathogens like Staphylococcus aureus, Escherichia coli, Klebsiella spp & enterococci, were isolated from 56.6% of mobile and 42.7% of hand samples. Methicillin resistance was seen in 25.5% of staphylococcal isolates. The colonization of isolates in hands was almost similar to that in mobile phones. Conclusion: Simple measures like hand washing, cleaning of mobile phones with 70% isopropyl alcohol and a well practiced infection control plan to bring down the rate of hospital acquired infections are recommended.

Seventeen isolates of Morganella morganii were identified among three hundred ninety five of gram-negative bacteria that grown on MacConkey agar and isolated from different infections at Al-Najaf Al-ashraf province hospitals. The initial identification of Morganella morganii isolates depended on the colonial morphology, microscopic examination and biochemical tests. The final identification and antibiotic susceptibility testing were performed by using automated VITEK-2 compact system. The results of susceptibility revealed that Morganella morganii isolates were highly resistant to most common antibiotics and considered to be multi-drug resistant (MDR). To detect AmpC β-lactamase enzymes, phenotype methods were used. Eleven and five isolates were AmpC producers according to initial and confirmatory methods, respectively. The genotype method was used to detect bla_AmpC gene using Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) technique. The results revealed that 7 (41.2%) of Morganella morganii isolates possess bla_AmpC gene.