Have you got a dirty QWERTY? So asked The Sun back in May when a study showed that your beloved keyboard was more germ-infested than your toilet. And when we say more, we mean FIVE times more.
The NHS knows the dangers of this, considering the amount of bugs it has to deal with on a daily basis in its hospitals and that’s why the service is changing the keyboards that it uses.
The NHS has ordered 7,500 of the keyboards that, in tests, have cut up to 70 per cent of bacteria levels, when they are cleaned twice daily.
Anti-infection
The new keyboards are part of a million pound contract that should make even the office environments in hospitals that bit safer.
The keyboards are called Medigenics and are said to cut infection rates from bugs such as Clostridium difficile and MRSA. The keyboards themselves are completely flat and are coated with hypoallergenic material.
There’s also a light that goes on automatically to tell you when your keyboard needs cleaning.
Dr Peter Wilson, of University College London Hospital and one of the creators of the keyboard, said about the device: "Doctors and nurses were going from patient to keyboard without washing their hands.
"That's quite understandable because you would wash your hands between patients but not between a patient and a keyboard. Compliance with twice-daily cleaning went up from 10-20 per cent with the keyboard covers to 87 per cent with the new model."
