Wickham Laboratories Case Study On The Bioburden Of New UK Currency Note

In collaboration with European Pharmaceutical Manufacturing (EPM), Wickham Laboratories Ltd recently performed a study examining the bioburden of the new £5 polymer notes. A British £5 note is exchanged hundreds of times during its lifespan and there are multiple opportunities for the note to become contaminated with bacteria.

The move from paper to polymer £5 notes was made due to the latter being seen as safer, stronger and cleaner. Our study on these polymer notes investigated the level of contamination and identified which microorganisms were present on the notes after several weeks of handling in real life conditions.

The results of the study show a lower presence of bacteria compared to the paper notes and we isolated similar types of gram positive bacteria from each of the nine £5 notes that were tested.