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IF YOU work in an office, perhaps you should be washing your hands before you go to the lavatory rather than after, or better still both. University of Arizona microbiologist Chuck Gerba has discovered that the average office desk is a veritable menagerie of microbes, with 400 times the bacterial load of the average toilet seat.

And it is not just your desk you have to worry about. The phone, the fax machine and door handles all harbour microbiological nasties in great numbers. Even the water fountain handle is a perfect site for growing bacteria.

Gerba points out that most…

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