Posted on 07/05/2008 2:04:42 PM PDT by TornadoAlley3
NEW DELHI: It's a simple act, yet most of us neglect it. We tend to take it lightly, sometimes dismissing it as unnecessary, little realising its importance. Yet, grandma’s advice about washing hands still holds true. Every time we scrub our hands clean, killer germs get washed away. Though various studies have established that washing hands with soap reduces the risk of normal diarrhoea by nearly half and life-threatening diarrhoea by more than half, very few people take this seriously.
In fact, a study conducted in West Bengal and Tripura last year found that only 49% washed their hands after using the toilet, and 38% before eating food. The percentage was even less for those who washed either before preparing (30%) or serving (26%) food. Only 53% did so after defecation.
"Lack of proper hand washing and general cleanliness can get serious. Diseases like diarrhoea, pneumonia and acute respiratory and skin infection are common when proper hygiene is not maintained," says Dr Sandip K Ray, professor, department of Community Medicine, Khaja Bandanawaj Institute of Medical Sciences, Gulbarga, Karnataka. He conducted the study on behalf of the Indian Public Health Association.
Children are the worst victims of lack of proper hygiene. A recent study in impoverished urban communities in South Africa found that five-year-olds and younger children experienced fewer gastrointestinal, respiratory and skin diseases when their families participated in intensive hygiene education. Use of effective hygiene products such as anti-bacterial soap, surface cleanser/disinfectant, and skin antiseptic further reduced incidences of diseases.
Most people, says experts, wash hands for the sake of washing. Proper washing involves six steps and 15-30 seconds spent soaping. "But what we have seen in our study is that people barely spend that long and just wash their palms," says Ray. The correct way to do it is to not just clean the palms, but also the back and all fingers.
Interestingly, president George W Bush is finicky about cleaning after shaking hands. He shocked Barack Obama when they met the first time. Immediately after shaking hands with him, he sprayed a hand sanitiser, leaving Obama mortified. But as he later clarified, he was just getting rid of some germs on his hands!
Later this year, Ray will undertake another study in Gulbarga to understand the impact of lack of hand washing and poor home hygiene. This time, the study will observe how people touch their refrigerators, raw vegetables are chopped, raw meat is cut, etc. ‘‘People don’t realise how important it is to maintain hygiene at home. Lack of it leads to many deaths, especially among young children,’’ says the doctor.
At least 1.8 million people die every year from diarrhoeal diseases, 90% of whom are children under five years. In fact, the death of these children can be easily avoided by almost 45% simply by hand washing and hygiene education, says a WHO report.
Hygiene intervention can work wonders, as Ray found out — it led to 98% using soap after defecation. The need of the hour, as most doctors emphasise, is to maintain good hygiene. Certainly not a matter to wash one’s hands off.
In India as well as other countries in that region, the hand , right hand for that matter is the eating utensil,
left hand for other purposes, enough said, both need to be washed.
I do that, too, when possible. That’s a trick I learned from my Dad. Not washing one’s hands is one of my pet peeves. They are nothing but inconsiderate slobs.
how about a straw instead of the supposedly cleansed lip of a glass ?
The entire world is turning into one gigantic pigsty.
Why do you think it’s just India? I worked at a hospital and right across from our office (in the basement) was the men’s room. One day it was out of paper towels and we kept count of the number of men who either came out wiping their hands along their pants or came to ask us if we had any paper towels. Most men did neither, obviously not handwashers. Of all the men that went in morning (about 50), only 2 of them came out with wet hands and requested the towels.
The places we eat at use styrofoam cups,but there really
is a certain danger eating out.
Um, maybe they'd learned not to pee all over their hands?
As an aside: Is it just me or does anyone else notice that during a TV episode or movie once in a while a character will use the toilet, walk over to the sink, turn on the water then splash his face first. I saw Mulder do that once on the X-Files. Disgusting! Wash your hands with soap and water first, THEN splash your face. Yuk.
Howard Hughes lives!
the urine itself is sterile; it’s the neighborhood the tool itself hangs out in, so to speak, that’s the problem
In an information age, this is an example of too much information.
Urine isn’t what you need to worry about. Urine should be sterile. Gross, but sterile. Especially in men.
It’s the other one that can lead to some rather unfortunate consequences.
Urine in a healthy individual does not contain bacteria.
It is truly amazing the number of people in the U.S. that do not wash their hands. At least the men....
You mean that those Mexican farm ownners and American farmers who hire illegal aliens don't give their slave workers a toilet break with washroom facilities n the fields???
I.m shocked!!
I.m shocked!!
it's not Politically Correct.{/sarc} You can't say that !
Filthy habits are ingrained in third-worlders. They obstinately reject hygiene as a “western” concept to save their pride.
What’s the deal with hospital personnel shopping in scrubs??
I figure they are either going to work, or just got off work, and either doesn’t make sense in a grocery store or exposure in public??
Urine in healthy individuals is in fact sterile, but not everybody is healthy, it should be noted.
Germs like telephones/cell phones, door knobs, fridge doors, countertops.
On the other hand, I knew a well-to-do only child who grew up and ran a successful business but died of some obscure disease. The thinking then went that he had not been exposed to enough germs or “dirt” as a child and thus his immune system never developed well. There’s some truth to the “if it don’t kill ya, it makes ya stronger” in any case.
“Honey, don’t ever question my judgement again. I told you I don’t want Indian food, ever, OK?”
But does urine stay sterile?
When I read "urine is sterile, at least in healthy people" (and do you want to bet that everyone who uses the bathroom is healthy down there? :þ) I'm always reminded of 6th-grade science class. That's where I learned about germ theory and long-ago experiments, involving sterile broth that soon became non-sterile broth.
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