手機攜帶細菌量超馬桶手柄
They are pretty much essential, but you may want to ditch your Mobile phone for ever after reading this.
The average handset carries 18 times more potentially harmful germs than a flush handle in a men's toilet, tests have revealed.
An analysis of handsets found almost a quarter were so dirty that they had up to ten times an acceptable level of TVC bacteria.
One of the phones in the test had such high levels of bacteria it could have given its owner a serious stomach upset.
While TVC is not immediately harmful, elevated levels indicate poor personal hygiene and act as a breeding ground for other bugs.
The findings from a sample of 30 phones by Which? magazine suggest 14.7 million of the 63 million mobiles in use in the UK today could be potential health hazards.
Hygiene expert Jim Francis, who carried out the tests, said: 'The levels of potentially harmful bacteria on one mobile were off the scale. That phone needs sterilising.'
The most unhygienic phone had more than ten times the acceptable level of TVC and seven were above the threshold.
This worst handset also had 39 times the safe level of enterobacteria, a group of bacteria that live in the lower intestines of humans and animals and include bugs such as Salmonella.
It boasted 170 times the acceptable level of faecal coliforms, which are associated with human waste.
Other bacteria including food poisoning bugs and staphylococcus aureus were found on the phones but at safe levels.
Which? researcher Ceri Stanaway said: 'Most phones didn't have any immediately harmful bacteria that would make you sick straight away but they were grubbier than they could be.
手機在我們的生活中不可或缺，但你在看完這篇文章後可能永遠也不想用手機了。
有關檢測表明，一個普通手機上所攜帶的有害細菌量是男廁所一個衝廁手柄所攜帶細菌量的18倍。
一項對手機的研究分析發現，近四分之一的手機十分骯髒，所攜帶的細菌量高達可接受細菌安全值的十倍。
其中一隻受測手機細菌攜帶量十分之高，足以導致使用者出現嚴重腹痛症狀。
儘管這些細菌不會立刻讓人得病，但手機上攜帶的細菌量如此之高說明人們的衛生習慣堪憂，而且這也會成爲其他細菌滋生的土壤。
這項由英國《哪個？》雜誌開展的研究共抽樣檢測了30個手機。調查表明，現在英國人使用的6300萬隻手機中有1470萬隻手機存在健康隱患。
對這些手機進行檢測的衛生專家吉姆•弗朗西斯說：“一個手機上所攜帶的有害細菌量超出了可接受的範圍。這個手機需要消消毒了。”
最髒的手機所攜帶的細菌量是可接受值的十倍多，另外有七隻手機的細菌量超標。
此外，這隻最髒的手機所攜帶的腸桿菌量是安全值的39倍。腸桿菌是存活於人體和動物小腸內的細菌，如沙門氏桿菌。
這隻手機所攜帶的糞大腸菌是可接受值的170倍。糞大腸菌是一種存在於人體糞便中的細菌。
在手機上發現的細菌還包括可引起食物中毒的大腸桿菌和黃金葡萄球菌，不過這些細菌的量都在安全範圍值以內。
《哪個？》雜誌的研究人員賽莉•斯坦阿維說：“大部分手機所攜帶的細菌不會立刻讓你生病，但它們可比想象中的要髒多了。”
Vocabulary:
ditch: to get rid of something/somebody because you no longer want or need it/them（擺脫；拋棄；丟棄）
flush handle: 馬桶按鍵，衝廁手柄
TVC: 細菌總量
grubby: rather dirty, usually because it has not been washed or cleaned（骯髒的；邋遢的；污穢的）
