Wash Your Hands!

Did you know that washing your hands is the SIMPLEST and BEST way to prevent illness?

Clean hands prevent infection and decrease the likelihood of illness in the home, workplace, and schools. Be sure to wash your hands:

- Before and after handling and preparing food

- Before eating

- After using the restroom

- After coughing, sneezing, or using a tissue or assisting someone who is

- After touching animals

- After handling garbage

- Before and after treating a wound

- When your hands are visibly soiled.

Washing your hands regularly can prevent:

- Indirect-contact infections including influenza and the common cold

- Fecal-oral transmission infections including salmonella, campylobacter, and enterovirus

- Direct-contact infections including typhoid and staphylococcal organisms

What’s the right way to do it, you ask?

- Wet your hands with warm water and apply soap

- Rub your hands together to form a lather and scrub all surfaces

- Scrub your hands for 15-20 seconds or sing the “Happy Birthday” song twice

- Rinse your hands thoroughly with warm water

- Dry your hands using a clean paper towel or air dryer and, when possible, turn the facet off using a paper towel.

Are alcohol-based cleaners effective?

Absolutely! Just remember, alcohol-based sanitizers are only quick ways to decrease the number of bacteria and should not replace soap-and-water washes all together. When using alcohol-based rubs:

- Apply the product to the palm of your hand

- Rub your hands together until they dry completely

* Always use soap and water when your hands are visibly soiled

How did this practice start?

The importance of hand washing was discovered by Ignaz Semmelweis in the late 1840’s when he assisted in the maternity ward in a Vienna hospital. He observed that the mortality rate was much greater in the ward staffed with medical students than the ward staffed with midwives. He discovered that the medical students were coming straight from their lessons in the autopsy room to deliver babies. Semmelweis postulated that the students were bringing the diseases from their autopsy rooms into the maternity wards resulting in death of the mothers. Semmelweis ordered the students to wash their hands before examining the mothers and, ultimately, mortality rates fell to less than one percent!

Although it took another 50 years for the concept of hand washing as a means of infection control to be accepted by the medical profession, Dr. Semmelweis continued to advocate hand washing and as a result thousands of lives have been saved.

According to the United States Centers of Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), "Hand washing is the single most important means of preventing the spread of infection."

Check out this video from Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: Put Your Hands Together

Do your part and prevent illness and infection in your life!