Question

A man takes a roll of dollar bills out of his pocket and “peels” off a few to pay the restaurant tab. Each time he peels, he wets his thumb with saliva. What is the hazard involved?

For microbiology

Answer 1

From Microbiology point of view wetting the thumb with saliva is not good. There are many hazards associated with it. Currency notes people use mostly and these currency travel alot from person to person. Microorganisms causing diseases like bacteria and viruses spread by different means through air , aerosols, oral fecal route. If a person is infected with pathogen like Mycobacterium tuberculosis or Coronavirus if that person peel off dollar bills with thumb having saliva. Then that virus or bacteria can remain of that dollar bill for particular time period and when other person take it it will spread to other person also. So it will lead to spread of that virus to other person. As currency notes move faster it will lead to great problem. Every person touching bills will have chances of infecting with that disease. It will lead to spead of disease.

I can make you better understand from example. During COVID-19 outbreak recently in India, a Muslim community known as Tablighi Jamaat has a role in increasing number of CoVID 19 patients in country. Many people of Tablighi jamaat were infected by COVID 19 , so bacause of their ill thinking to spread it to other people of country. They used currency notes for that. They took currency notes and spreaded their saliva on notes and used currency notes to spread COVID-19. Person who come in contact with currency notes some of which become infected with COVID 19. They also used other method of spread in which they start spitting on people.