A preliminary bacterial study of Egyptian paper money

The objective of this study was to investigate the extent of contamination of some of the most used paper denominations of the Egyptian currency (25 PT). Sixty-nine bills in circulation were collected from November 2003 through January 2004. A swab from each bill was cultured on nutrient agar and incubated at 37 degrees C for 48 h. Results showed that over 65% of these bills had a bacterial count above 5.0 cm2. A preliminary identification of organisms present on these paper notes was done using selected Petri dishes with well-defined colonies.