Listen to This Article Enhance your reading experience by listening to this article.

1. Money

Kenya Medical Research Institute (Kemri) recently found that money, especially the Sh20 coins and Sh50 notes, circulating in Nairobi contain large amounts of deadly disease-causing germs.

The scientists tested money and phones from 395 food handlers in 15 different types of outlets in Nairobi county and confirmed the two items to be highly tainted with germs. The money was tested for eight types of disease-causing organisms and all were confirmed present on the notes and coins.

2. Mobile Phone

Phones were tested and confirmed to be tainted with 12 pathogens, with Staphylococcus species being the most prevalent. If you touch your face or mouth after handling your phone, you could increase your chances for infections like the cold, the flu and cellulitis.

One study found young adults check their cellphones about 85 times a day; a separate study discovered one in six phones are home to fecal matter and E. coli, which can cause diarrhoea, nausea or fever. Most phones are placed in warm pockets, too great places for bacteria to grow.

3. Hand towels

Bacteria like to grow in wet, moist conditions. Towels are made to absorb water, which is great for drying your skin, but not so great when it comes to discouraging bacterial incubation. Most people don’t wash their hands properly, so when they use the towel, they are rubbing bacteria into an ideal growing environment. Health experts recommend that you should wash towels after every two days of use.

4. Toothbrush holder

These as well as the toothbrushes themselves are another bathroom reservoirs of germs because they are rarely cleaned.

A 2011 report from the public health organisation NSF International found 27 per cent of toothbrush holders were home to Coliform bacteria, a sickness-causing family of micro-organism that includes Salmonella and E. coli.

5. Handbag

You stick your hands in it all the time. But you rarely clean it. That accounts for the bacteria that live inside it.The places you leave it, like dirty counters, bathroom stalls, and car floorboards, account for the germs on the outside.

If you regularly place your handbag on a dirty counter or bathroom floor, you could be in for even more germs, like salmonella, E. coli, fungi and strep. Hang it on a hook when you can, and clean it with antibacterial wipes.