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The masks that we periodically put on our faces without cleaning, are full of bacteria. This showed a NOVA experiment. Together with scientists from the Institute of Microbiology, we took swabs from different masks. Our team brought several masks to the Institute of Microbiology. We give the scientists two of them, one completely sterile and the other dirty, kept in a bag and repeatedly placed in public transport, shops and pharmacies.
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The results come out two days later. The dirty mask is literally teeming with all kinds of bacteria, after all, there are none deadly.
“It has a huge bacterial content, as we expected. Three of the most dangerous pathogens are missing: salmonella, Escherichia coli and hygiene,” said the director of the Institute of Microbiology, BAS Penka Petrova.
But even those that are now glued to the mask can be extremely dangerous, said the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences.
“There are special streptococci, proteus, which in certain circumstances can be dangerous when a person’s immune system is weakened or compromised by disease,” explained Ivan Ivanov from the Department of General Microbiology.
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And to find out which side of the mask is dirtier, we make separate swabs taken from both sides. We wait again and the result is curious: the interior is dirtier. And the reason is that we ourselves exhale millions of bacteria, which we then swallow.
“Exhaled air contaminates the mask of the microflora of the mouth, teeth and digestive tract of man,” Petrova said.
Despite the result, microbiologists recommend wearing an old mask before the alternative of not wearing one. According to them, the amount of bacteria that a person would re-ingest is not so great as to create a great risk to health. And another thing we learned from scientists: masks made of artificial materials, which we sew ourselves, do not protect at all.
READ ALL ABOUT CORONAVIRUS IN OUR COUNTRY AND ALL OVER THE WORLD HERE
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