Toothbrush - a room for contamination, study
Posted on: 04/Jun/2015 2:27:32 PM
You may have to be more cautious if you got a shared bathroom in your home where all your family members share the same room to solve the purpose. New research finding state toothbrush can act as a vector of transmission in distributing pathogenic organisms among individuals so easily. Evidence of transmission of fecal coliform bacteria is found by the researchers mainly in communal bathrooms.
The concern is not about the possible presence of fecal matter of your own on your own toothbrush. But when the brush is contaminated by that of someone else’s that obviously contains virus, parasites, or bacteria, that’s definitely not normal.
The research involved studying toothbrushes taken from bathrooms that were communally used where about 9 users were in common. The research was conducted in samples from Quinnipiac University. About 60% of these brush samples were found to have got affected.
You may think of covering the toothbrush, but that’s not really a smart preventive measure as the moisture in the brush will serve a good room for bacterial growth, in addition to the stoppage of drying of it.
Better personal hygiene practices are to important in students who use communal bathrooms. Toothbrushes are long known as a good source of contamination which has been studied since 1920s. Reuse of toothbrush is another concern for scientists as they claim it can induce oral cavity infection.
Your toothbrush will be prone to contamination if stored in an open bathroom, particularly thy will become vulnerable to faecal materials. To note, this study was presented during the annual meeting of American Society of Microbiology in New Orleans, Louisiana.
