The best thing you can do to keep from getting sick is to wash your hands. Frequently washing your hands removes germs you have picked up from other people, contaminated surfaces, or from animals and animal waste. When you pick up germs from these sources, you can infect yourself by touching your eyes, nose or mouth. One of the most common ways people catch colds is by rubbing their nose or eyes after their hands have been contaminated with the cold virus. You can also spread germs directly to others or onto surfaces other people touch. Before you know it, everybody around you is getting sick! The important thing to remember is that, in addition to colds, some pretty serious diseases — hepatitis A, meningitis, influenza, streptococcal disease, infectious diarrhea — can easily be prevented if people make a habit of washing their hands. It is especially important to wash your hands after coughing or sneezing, before, during and after preparing food, before you eat, after you use the bathroom, after handling animals or animal waste, when your hands are dirty, and more frequently when someone in your home is sick. There is more to hand-washing than you think! Rubbing your hands vigorously with soapy water removes the dirt and oily soils from your skin. The lather suspends both the dirt and germs inside bubbles where they can quickly be washed away. Follow these four simple steps to keep hands clean:
-Wet your hands with warm running water.
-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 back of your hands, as well as between your fingers and under your nails.
-Rinse your hands well, under warm running water. Let the water run back into the sink, not down your elbows.
-Dry hands thoroughly with a clean towel.
Any type of soap can be used. However, bar soap should be kept in a self-draining holder that is cleaned thoroughly before new bars are put out. Liquid soap containers should be used until empty and cleaned before refilling. Always use disposable towels at school.
More than nine in ten adults say they wash their hands after using public restrooms; however, just six in ten were observed to do so (according to the American Society for Microbiology Survey – 9/00). In fact, men and women are less likely to wash today than they were four years ago. Women surveyed were significantly more likely than men to at least say they wash their hands after various activities or events. For instance, 40 percent of women reported washing after sneezing or coughing, compared to 22 percent of men. 54 percent of women say they wash after petting a dog or cat, while only 36 percent of men say they do so. And 86 percent of women, compared to 70 percent of men, say they wash their hands after handling a diaper. According to Judy Daly, Ph.D., Secretary of the American Society of Microbiology, “The more people do their part to control the spread of infections, the less we have to use antibiotics, which lose their potency over time as bacteria develop resistance to them.” Hand-washing is the simplest, most effective thing we can do to reduce the spread of infectious diseases.
Source: www.cdc.gov