Your Keyboard: Dirtier Than a Toilet

How dirty is your Qwerty?

It turns out that your computer keyboard could put a host of potentially harmful bacteria -- including E. coli and staph -- quite literally at your fingertips.

Your keyboard may be dirtier than you think, according to a recent swab test by a U.K. microbiologist.

(Photodisc)

Sure, it may sound like a hypochondriac's excuse to stay away from the office. But a growing body of research suggests that computer mice and keyboards are, in fact, prime real estate for germs.

It's a phenomenon most recently illustrated by tests at a typical office environment in the United Kingdom. A consumer advocacy group commissioned the tests in which British microbiologist James Francis took a swab to 33 keyboards, a toilet seat and a toilet door handle at the publication's London office in January.

Francis then tested the swabs to see what nasty germs he managed to pick up. He found that four of the keyboards tested were potential health hazards -- and one had levels of germs five times higher than that found on the toilet seat.

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/Germs/story?id=4774746&page=1