Banknotes and coins from kiosks, banks and shops were tested for various bacteria.
Remember when you were younger and your parents would always tell you to wash your hands after handling dirty coins? How they’d leave an unpleasant scent on your hands and you never even really thought about the huge variety of places that money could have been before it fell into your possession? Well, it would seem that at least the Croatian kuna isn’t as dirty as it could be.
As Vecernji List writes on the 1st of December, 2017, it would seem that there were only a small number of bacterial colonies found on Croatian coins and banknotes which were taken and tested from a variety of sources, fresh from banks, shops, kiosks and more, where you’d assume that they’d collect up a wealth of potentially unpleasant bacteria from all of the handling involved at the hands of hundreds if not thousands of different people.
It would seem that the Croatian kuna is not dirty money. Banknotes and coins were tested in all denominations and in 30% of cases, they were sterile and no resistant microorganisms were found, only regular bacteria that are part of normal skin flora, with the exception of very much isolated colonies of the potentially harmful Klebsiella bacteria – known primarily for causing various infections, the most serious of which being Meningitis.
The results of this interesting study suggest that the Croatian national currency is actually less contaminated with potential pathogenic bacteria than other currencies which were also the subjects of similar research throughout the world.
A significant percentage of banknotes and coins were taken to be tested from everyday life situations (banks, shops, kiosks etc) and even though they looked extremely dirty, worn out and old, just a small number of unwanted bacterial colonies were found on them.
It would seem that the Croatian kuna is very hostile to the growth of any multi-resistant microorganism that was tested, which was a somewhat unexpected discovery.
Owing to the results of this intricate research, it has been noted that Croatia’s experience in this field could be interesting for other countries when it comes to the application of the same formula in their respective banknote production, thus excluding banknotes as a source of bacterial contamination and the potential cause of the spread of bacteria in the general population – explains doc. dr. sc. Domagoj Drenjančević from the Faculty of Medicine in Osijek, under whose mentorship this research was carried out at the initiative of student Dino Belić.
Money is often a factor of fear for the transmission and spread of a great number of diseases, which, after this detailed investigation, should lay a lot of anxiety about the Croatian kuna to rest. It of course doesn’t mean that we should relax the standard rules such as the washing of hands after handling money, but rather to continue doing so just to keep the currency clean.
”The spread of antibiotic resistant bacterial species in this day and age is one of the most important clinical, epidemiological and microbiological challenges. The conclusion is that most of the identified bacterial species and genera [found on the money] belong to normal human skin or mucous flora and that in fact, with one exception, no species was detected which would indicate a lack of hygiene or direct contaminants from the digestive tract,” stated Domagoj Drenjančević.
This curious experiment was “meticulously carried out in accordance with the standard procedures, materials and methods of microbiology”.
