Specimens were taken from the new machines that have been rolled out at restaurants across the country and every one of them had coliforms, and it was shocking on how much stomach and faecal bacteria there was on the touchscreen machines because this is the cause of the kind of infections people get and end up in the hospital with.
For example, Enterococcus Faecalis is part of the flora of gastrointestinal tracts of healthy humans and other mammals, and it’s notorious in hospitals for causing hospital-acquired infections.
Unsuspecting customers choose their food on the touchscreens then go to the server to pick up their burgers more often than not without cleaning their hands, and a screen at one branch was found to have staphylococcus, a bacteria that can cause blood poisoning and toxic shock syndrome.
And seeing Staphylococcus on the machines is disturbing because it’s so infectious. It starts around people’s noses, and if they touch their nose with their fingers, they can then transfer it to the touchscreen for someone else to get it, and if they have an open cut which it gets into, then it can be fatal.
And there’s a lot of worries at the moment that Stapycoccus is becoming resistant to antibiotics, and it’s still very dangerous in areas like Africa where it can cause toxic shock.
Metro.co.uk’s study with the university’s school of human sciences involved swabs taken from eight McDonald’s establishments. Six in London and two in Birmingham. Listeria bacteria was discovered in Oxford Street and Holloway Road branches.
It can cause Listeriosis which can lead to miscarriages and stillbirths in pregnant women, and Listeria was another rare bacterium that was discovered on the touchscreen machines and this can be extremely infectious and a problem for those with a weak immune system, and three-quarters of the screens swabbed showed evidence of the bacteria Proteus.
Proteus can be found in human and animal faeces. It’s also widely distributed in soil.
It can cause urinary tract infections and is also one of the hospital-acquired infections where it may responsible for septicaemia.
Klebsiella is also from the gut and the mouth, and they’re associated with urinary tract infections, septicemia and diarrhoea, and some species can infect the respiratory tract resulting in pneumonia, and as touchscreen technology is being used more and more in our daily lives, these results confirm that people should not consume their food straight after touching them, they’re unsanitary and can spread infection.
Someone can be extremely cautious about their own cleanliness throughout the day but it could all be destroyed by using a touchscreen machine just once and even though McDonald’s do wash their screens with disinfectant, it might not have been strong enough and this bacteria could have been on the touchscreen machine for days on end.
Of course, people should wash their hands before they eat, and I dread to think of what bacteria there is on money, and it’s not only down to McDonald’s cleaning their screens, it’s people who need to clean their hands as well.
But then they’ve done tests like these on all kinds of public centres, handrails in particular, and there’s poop all over the place, it’s not only McDonald’s.
But then what should we do, should we wash our hands before touching, wash after touching, wash before eating, wash our hands all day until they bleed. We could always wrap ourselves in cling film and never touch things.
And if you did a hit-swab test on the streets from people’s hands and smart screens of the public, you’d seemingly discover the same, but this shouldn’t come as any surprise. Try any surface in the public, trams, trains, buses, not neglecting surfaces in homes, work surfaces, phone screens and handles, it’s everywhere, but then shit happens!
