Wash your hands and reduce the risk of an infectious disease, writes KASMIAH MUSTAPHA.

Prof Cole said diarrhoea, which can be prevented with proper personal hygiene, is a leading cause of death among children in developing countries.

Dr Lee said preventive measures should be put in place to limit people’s exposure to germs in public buildings.

IT’s a simple thing to do.

Yet many tend not to make it a habit to wash their hands — after using the toilet, before and after handling food, or anytime their hands are exposed to germs.

By using soap and clean water to disinfect, the risk of infectious diseases can be reduced significantly.

Studies show that such diseases are usually spread through hand-to-hand contact.
The germs are spread when people touch food or surfaces that have been handled by dirty hands. Diarrhoea, the common cold, pneumonia and acute respiratory and skin infections are some of the illnesses that can ensue as a result.

Inadequate hand washing and cross-contamination is responsible for as much as 40 per cent of food-borne diseases, including salmonella, hepatitis A, shigellosis, staphylococcus, streptococcus, E. Coli and many yet unidentified and dangerous viral infections.

In a study presented at the 13th International Congress on Infectious Diseases in Kuala Lumpur recently, a strong association with fewer illnesses was found when families practised hand hygiene.

The study’s sample consisted of communities living in squatter and residential areas in Cape Town, South Africa.

The Cape Town Hygiene Promotion Partnership was founded in 2005 by Reckitt Benckiser Inc. collaborating with United States’ Brigham Young University.

Among the objectives of the study were to determine the effectiveness of personal and home hygiene products in reducing disease rates in a poor community, and to reduce the gastrointestinal, respiratory and skin diseases commonly suffered by predominantly Xhsoa families living in the high-risk housing areas fringing Cape Town.

The communities were chosen based on several criteria: those with only communal access to clean water and communal latrines/buckets (i.e. squatter areas); communities whose under-five mortality rate is at least four times higher than other areas; and areas that spent only 40 per cent of the total health-care expenditure on a public health system that serves 80 per cent of the population, among others.

These communities were taught proper hand washing methods, given “hand washing stations”, had their food vendors induced to practise hygienic food preparation and instructed on how to manage communal toilets.

In residential neighbourhoods, the study found there was a 78.5 per cent reduction of respiratory diseases, 77.3 per cent in skin diseases, and 81 per cent in gastrointestinal diseases in children under five years old.

In “shack communities”, there was a 56.2 per cent reduction in respiratory diseases, 84.1 per cent in gastrointestinal illnesses and 64.2 per cent in skin infections under the same age bracket.

The project’s technical director Eugene Cole said the study found that hygiene education, together with products such as antiseptic soap and disinfectants, can significantly reduce transmissible respiratory illnesses.

“In children below five years old, diseases that are transmitted through unhygienic conditions can be fatal. If these communities are not taught about proper sanitation, we might not be able to reduce the mortality rates.”

Cole, a professor in the Department of Health Science at Brigham Young University, said diarrhoea is a leading cause of death among children in developing countries.

In some countries, it accounts for between 15 and 34 per cent of all deaths, with about six million dying from it every year.

He said about 1.9 million die from acute respiratory infections annually, with 70 per cent of them from Africa and Southeast Asia.

The major respiratory pathogens are streptococcus pneumoniae, haemophilus influenzae type B, respiratory synctial virus, parainfluenza virus type 3 and the influenza virus.

Major risks to children’s health include unsafe/insufficient food, air pollution, disease vectors, inadequate personal hygiene, lack of clean household water and poor access to adequate health care.

Sungai Buloh Hospital head and consultant of infectious diseases Dr Christopher K.C. Lee said that a wide range of non-medical interventions — from personal hygiene to wearing masks, quarantine and the screening of travellers — can potentially reduce the spread of germs.

“Hand hygiene remains a pre-requisite for preventing the transmission of disease,” he said.

In H5N1, an influenza virus subtype, hand hygiene, which includes hand washing with soap and the use of alcohol-based hand rubs, is critical to prevent possible contamination of the nose, mouth and conjunctivae by unwashed hands.”

He said in public buildings, minimising the exposure of humans to viruses is the key to reducing risks of infection.

Preventive measures in such places include encouraging frequent hand washing, ensuring the building’s occupants and visitors have access to facilities for proper personal hygiene, and ensuring surfaces are cleaned regularly.

“It is so easy to stop the spread of germs and infectious diseases by washing your hands. While many of us do make the effort to ensure hand hygiene, there are also others who take it lightly.

“We should no longer think of hand hygiene as insignificant.”

Hand-washing tips

Here are some tips on effective hand washing:

Wash hands after:

1. Using the bathroom.

2. Coughing, sneezing and handling mucus.

3. Touching door knobs and handles.

4. Shaking hands.

5. Handling money.

6. Using phones or computers.

7. Handling pets including farm animals or those at zoos.

8. Handling raw meat and eggs.

9. Touching blood, non-intact skin, saliva, or bodily fluids.

10. Playing outdoors or with other children’s toys.

11. Eating.

12. Handling food (and also before doing so).

Hand washing can prevent:

Diseases that spread through fecal-oral transmission. Infections which may be transmitted via this route include salmonella, shigella, hepatitis A, giardia, enterovirus, amebiasis and campylobacter.

Because these diseases are spread through the ingestion of even minute particles of fecal matter, hand washing following defecation cannot be overemphasised.

Diseases that spread through indirect transmission include influenza, strep, respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) and the common cold.

Because these diseases may be spread indirectly by hands freshly soiled by discharges from the mouths and noses of infected people, illness can be avoided by washing hands after coughing or sneezing.

Diseases that spread when hands are contaminated with urine, saliva or other moist bodily substances include cytomegalovirus, schistosomiasis, typhoid, staphylococcal organisms and Epstein-Barr virus.

These germs may be transmitted from person to person or indirectly by contaminated food or inanimate objects such as toys.

Proper hand washing:

There is more to hand washing than you think.

By rubbing your hands vigorously with soapy water, you pull the dirt free from your skin. The soap lather traps both the dirt and germs in it before they are rinsed off with water.

Follow these four steps to keep hands clean:

1. Wet your hands with warm running water.

2. Add soap, then rub your hands together, making a soapy lather. Do this away from the running water for at least 10 seconds, being careful not to wash the lather away. Wash the front and the back of your hands, as well as between your fingers and under your nails.

3. Rinse your hands well under warm running water. Let the water run back into the sink, not down to your elbows. Turn off the sink with a paper towel and dispose in a proper receptacle.

4. Dry hands thoroughly with a clean towel.

Type of soaps to be used:

Any type of soap may be used.

1. However, bar soaps should be kept in self-draining holders that are cleaned thoroughly before new ones are put in.

2. Liquid soap containers (which must be used in day-care centres) should be used until empty and cleaned before re-filling.

3. To prevent chapping, use a mild soap with warm water; pat rather than rub hands dry; and then apply lotion liberally and frequently.

Things to avoid regarding hand washing:

• Do not use a single damp cloth to wash the hands of a group of children.

• Do not use a basin of water to rinse hands.

• Do not use a common hand towel. Always use disposable towels.

• Do not use sponges or non-disposable cleaning cloths, unless you wash them on a regular basis, adding chlorine bleach to the wash water. Remember that germs thrive on moist surfaces.

Helping children wash their hands properly:

• Do not assume that children know how to wash their hands correctly.

• Let children observe how to wash hands properly from their guardians.

• Supervision, especially in a day-care setting, is essential in forming good hand washing habits. Even though hands appear to be clean, they can be carrying disease-causing germs.

Source:
Utah Department of Health
(http://health.utah.gov/epi/fact_sheets/handwash.pdf)