Global Handwashing Day, 15th Oct'20. "Raise A Hand For Hygiene"

Looking at the utmost importance of hand hygiene in current pandemic scenario, Nelson Mandela’s quote fits so well, “It is in your hands to create a better world for all who live in it.”

Hands are the parts of our body that have the most contact with other people, objects, and our own selves — think about how often we mindlessly touch our face throughout the day. So, while head-to-toe hygiene is a high priority for so many people, there's an especially strong focus now on keeping hands clean when it comes to preventing the spread of disease-carrying germs.

Whether you've always got hand sanitizer handy or you prefer washing with soap and water, you're already ahead of the game — both are far better at limiting the transmission of many viruses and bacteria than not doing anything to purify your hands.

Today, washing hands may seem like common sense to many people (even if they don’t all do it properly). Yet it wasn’t until the mid-19th century that some doctors in the United States and Europe began to wash their hands before examining patients—and even then, only in certain cases. Ignaz Semmelweis, a Hungarian doctor working in Vienna General Hospital, is known as the father of hand hygiene. Semmelweis imposed a new rule mandating hand washing with chlorine for doctors. The rates of death in his maternity ward fell dramatically. This was the first proof that cleansing hands could prevent infection.

A few years later in Scutari, Italy, the Crimean War brought about a new handwashing champion, Florence Nightingale. At a time when most people believed that infections were caused by foul odors called miasmas, Florence Nightingale implemented hand washing and other hygiene practices in the war hospital in which she worked.

Sadly, the hand hygiene practices promoted by Semmelweis and Nightingale were not widely adopted. It was not until the 1980s, when a string of foodborne outbreaks and healthcare-associated infections led to public concern that the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention identified hand hygiene as an important way to prevent the spread of infection.

Now that hand washing is a ritual everyone is following religiously to stay off the novel coronavirus infection, a study has revealed that prior to this, many countries were not habituated to automatically wash hands after using the toilet. At least 50% people did not have the idea of washing hands. India ranks 10th on this chart, 1st being the worst hand washing country. In China, 77% people didn’t use to wash hands. Japan, South Korea, the Netherlands, Thailand, Kenya, Italy, Malaysia, Hong Kong and India are the worst 10 performers.

Frequent handwashing with soap for at least 20 seconds at a time is widely advised as one of the preventive measures against COVID-19. it’s especially important to wash:

• Before eating or preparing food
• Before touching your face
• After using the restroom
• After leaving a public place
• After blowing your nose, coughing, or sneezing
• After handling your mask
• After changing a diaper
• After caring for someone sick
• After touching animals or pets

Teaching people about hand washing helps them and their communities stay healthy. Hand washing education in the community:

• Reduces the number of people who get sick with diarrhea by 23-40% 
• Reduces diarrheal illness in people with weakened immune systems by 58% 
• Reduces respiratory illnesses, like colds, in the general population by 16-21% 
• Reduces absenteeism due to gastrointestinal illness in schoolchildren by 29-57% 

Antibiotics often are prescribed unnecessarily for many of these health issues. Reducing the number of these infections by washing hands frequently helps prevent the overuse of antibiotics—the single most important factor leading to antibiotic resistance around the world. Handwashing can also prevent people from getting sick with germs that are already resistant to antibiotics and that can be difficult to treat.

Clean hands are guardians of health, so we urge everybody to spare some time from your busy schedule for washing your hands properly in order to break the germ cycle. Let us fight the germ warfare, wipe them out, wash your hands.

Thanks & Regards,

Amar Mehta (MD)

(AGM Enterprises - Total cleaning & hygiene company)

Web: www.agmenterprises.in / www.agmentp.com

M: +919890490500