Why phones, keyboards and mice make me sick

Computerworld - You've got antivirus software protecting your network, PCs and workstations. Nice going! But what about the "computer viruses" Norton can't help you with?

Don't look now, but your desk and everything on it (especially your keyboard) is a horrible science project; a thriving freak show of an ecosystem teaming with nasty, microbial sea monkeys. Your cell phone is even worse.

The good news is that, in the past two years, new products have emerged that do for phones, keyboards and mice what antivirus software does for your operating system. The bad news is that you're probably not using any of them.

As an IT professional, your chances of infection -- and spreading the infection within your office -- are alarmingly high.

It's especially alarming this time of year. Flu season is upon us. Flu, or influenza, is caused by RNA viruses from the Orthomyxoviridae family. Between 5% and 20% of the U.S. population catches the flu every year, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Flu sufferers usually feel fatigue and soreness in the throat, head and elsewhere and get sick for a week or two. Most survive, but it's not fun. Some aren't so lucky. Influenza kills hundreds of thousands of people worldwide each year unless there is a pandemic, when millions are killed. Even vaccination is no guarantee that you'll be protected.

You don't get the flu or other infections randomly. You get sick when germs enter your body -- usually through your mouth or nose, and those germs usually are delivered there by your hands.

Germs can spread through the inhalation of infected airborne sneeze droplets or through direct contact, such as by shaking hands. But some 80% of flu cases are contracted by touching an infected object.

Most germs, including the influenza virus, can survive for only about five minutes on your hands, but they can live for up to two days on phones, keyboards, mice and other surfaces.

Most people fear germs from shaking hands, flying in airplanes or touching bathroom doorknobs. But the dirtiest objects for office workers are phones, desks, keyboards and mice, which have orders of magnitude more germs than anything else you're likely to come in contact with at work.

Several studies conducted in the past few years at the University of Arizona found that telephones are the most germ-infected objects in our lives, followed by desktops, water fountain handles, microwave door handles, keyboards and mice. (Famously, these studies, headed by microbiologist Charles Gerba, revealed that keyboards have 400 times more bacteria than an average toilet seat.) Here are the relative germ densities of frequently touched office equipment: