All these years I’ve been doing it wrong. And only investing 10 seconds a wash. Time for an in-depth training session on how to wash my hands. Next up? A collaborative brainstorm session on how to tie my shoes.
Thanks WHO!
B
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WHO: How to Wash Hands
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{ 10 comments… read them below or add one }
Yeah, and your hands have been a ticking time bomb since day one.
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Great post - just linked back at:
http://humanitarianrelief.change.org/blog/view/favorite_links_of_the_past_week
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I just took the foodsafe course. They say that only 30 seconds is necessary. I suspect that’s because swine flu isn’t on their radar. They didn’t present it with such helpful graphics either…
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Where did you see the sign? If it was in one of the health clinics it is for good reason. Apparently poor hand hygiene is one of the main sources of hospital acquired infection as well as the spread of drug resistant bacteria (MRSA for instance). So it is important. However, if the sign is just in any old bathroom, maybe thats a little excessive. If you can get some alcohol hand gel, its better at killing bacteria and takes less time.
Its funny how some of the simple things are the main causes of complications in hospital. Apparently the largest cause of post-transfusion hemolytic blood reaction (ie. transfusing the wrong blood type into someone, which can be fatal) is misidentification of the patient.
It could also be a tactic to get people to wash their hands more thoroughly. If the sign says 60seconds and you’ve only been doing it 10seconds, maybe you’ll go to up to 20 secs, which is an improvement, especially in the developing world where they may “wipe with the left”. Fecal-oral contact is a main cause of disease!
And yes, I realize I kind of sound like wanker ;-)
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To Raff, Li, B:
Check out the Globe and Mail’s Best of the Last 24 Hrs photos (for may 23), since the topic of the North Shore came up.
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I know it’s easy to point and laugh at WHO excessivity. But a standard (social) handwash doesn’t actually clean your hands. And tends to leave the tips of your fingers dirty, the interspaces dirty, and your thenar eminence dirty (the muscley area on your palm, under your thumb).
So yeah… good handwashing is important. Especially in a medical environment. Or in any environment where you might transfer an infective disease.
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Also, Alcohol gel isn’t any better at killing bacteria than plain soap and water. There are some bugs (Clostridium in particular) which are not killed by alcohol, which are killed by soap and water.
And, in real world situations, when people use alcohol gel, they spend less time washing their hands, and tend to leave out more parts.
And alcohol gel costs more than soap.
And, if you really want to push a point home, soap can be locally manufactured (simple lye and fat based soap is as good at killing bacteria as more expensive ‘anti-bacterial soaps’).
I’ll stop now.
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I have a friend who’s a microbiologist, and she tells me that one of the most effective ways to get bacteria off your hands is the wiping action that accompanies rubbing soap onto your hands, washing the water off, and drying them. She rather dislikes the alcohol gels as they just move the bacteria around instead of actually removing it from your hands. She’s also not a fan of hand dryers instead of towels.
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That’s right. There’s some really interesting studies from Bangladesh - washing your hands with clean mud (i.e. mud that is not contaminated with stools) and water is almost as good as using soap and water.
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Thanks guys,
Who’s to say that my ulterior motive wasn’t to instigate a response from Manpreet, ever wise on all things public health.
It was, I believe, directed at health professionals, which is pretty legitimate. It was also, however, being distributed in an unrelated library, which is not.
The question was whether a less complex message might have reached more people. I’m very happy it triggered such a discussion though.
B
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