The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) declare that about 50 percent of the deaths associated with diarrheal illness could be prevented if the population generally adhered to a strict soap-hand-washing routine. 

Handwashing your hands are among the best ways to guard your family and yourself against contracting illness. Find the answers you need to commonly asked questions regarding washing your hands and applying hand sanitizers in a community setting.

 

What is Global Handwashing Day?

The Global Handwashing Partnership was founded in the year 2000. Global Handwashing Day is an annual international advocacy day aiming to raise awareness and understanding of the importance of handwashing using soap as a simple, effective, and cost-effective method to avoid getting sick. 

It's a chance to create experiments and reproduce inventive ways to motivate people to clean their hands using soap in critical moments.

Global Handwashing Day is designed to:

  • Make people aware of the benefits of hand washing with soap.
  • Make a statement about the condition of hand washing all over the world.
  • Support and encourage the global and local tradition of hand washing with soap.

What is hand washing?

Hand hygiene is a method to reduce the number of microorganisms on the hand's skin. This is known as hand washing when the procedure is carried out with water and soap. If it is done using alcohol-based products or soap that is antiseptic, it's called hand disinfection.

 

Why should I cleanse my hands?

On a typical day, people expose their bodies to toxins that could cause illness or infection. Various infections and diseases can be prevented entirely with hand washing, such as respiratory infections, influenza digestion-related infections, and salmonella. 

Hand washing can not only protect you from contracting the illness; it can also aid other people suffering from weak immune systems, including the elderly, children, those with medical conditions that weaken the immune system, and people who are not eligible to be vaccine-free.

 

What aspects must be considered to avoid damaging the skin on the hands?

To avoid skin problems, your hands must be completely dry after completing the process. After washing your hands with detergent and water, paper towels should be used to ensure that your hands are dry and clean. 

Also, when cleansing using an alcohol-based cleanser, you must rub your hands for a few minutes until the solution is completely dried. It is recommended for health professionals to take proper care of their hands, regularly moisturizing their hands throughout the day, and preferably after having completed working for the day.

 

Do you prefer using cold or warm water?

Use your preferred temperature of warm or cold water to cleanse your hands. Cold and warm water will remove the same amount of germs from your hands. The water assists in creating a soap lather which helps remove bacteria from your skin as hand washing.

 

How can hand washing with soap and water eliminate toxins and bacteria?

When whipped into a lather, water, and soap trap, cleanse chemicals and germs from your hands; soaking your hands in clean water before applying soap will help make a stronger lather. This is more effective than using soap on your dry hands. Well-made leather creates micelles, which can trap and remove germs, harmful chemicals, and dirt from your hands.

Scrubbing your hands over 20 seconds is crucial in this process because these actions help physically eliminate bacteria and eliminate germs, and other chemicals from your hands. After you wash your hands, you rinse the dirt and chemicals out of your drain.

 

Do I have to clean my hands for 20 seconds?

Studies have shown that you must wash your for 20 seconds to eliminate harmful bacteria and chemicals out of your hands. If you wash your hands for less time, you won't remove the same amount of germs. Be sure to clean all the areas of your hands, such as your palms and the backs of your hands between your fingers and beneath your fingernails.

 

Do I have to dry my hands?

The results of studies have revealed that bacteria are more likely to transfer between wet and dry hands. Recent studies looking at the risk of bacterial infection associated with using air dryers have shown that air dryers aren't particularly able to create bacteria. 

Hand dryers expose our hands to significantly more significant amounts of bacteria than paper towels because they circulate bacteria in the air. However, exposure to bacteria from air dryers can be significantly reduced when using hand dryers with HEPA filters.

 

What happens if the water is contaminated or dirty?

Hands can be contaminated with bacteria if you put them in water that appears dirty, has been polluted, or contains germs from prior usage. This is why experts suggest using clean, running water to clean your hands. If you're not privy to running, clean water, use a hand sanitizer containing at minimum 60% alcohol to eliminate germs.

Even if you're not equipped with clean running water or hand sanitizer, you can still eliminate bacteria from your hands by using clear water to wash your hands. 

You can ensure that water is safe by boiling it and adding the correct amount of disinfectants, such as bleach, a mild solution, or filtration. Choose the cleanest water to clean your hands. Avoid using cloudy water or water polluted by harmful chemicals or toxins.

 

What happens if there is water, but I don't have soap?

If there isn't soap, use an antibacterial hand wash with 60% alcohol. If you do not have hand sanitizer or soap but have water, use your hands to rub in the water, then dry them using a towel or let them air dry. Rubbing your hands in water can wash the germs off your hands, though it's not the same as washing them with soap.

 

Which is better? Hand washing the hands or disinfecting them?

If a person's hands are dirty, it is recommended to wash them with soap and water since soap helps remove the dirt. If the hands are stained but not visibly dirty, the method of option is disinfection with alcohol-based solutions since antiseptics remove a more significant number of microorganisms.

 

Conclusion

People wash their hands just 19 percent of the time after having a bathroom visit or changing a diaper for a child. In some regions of the world, the average person washes their hands with soap only two or one percent of crucial times. People need to be enticed to alter their hand-washing habits, and knowing is just one aspect that could push people to adopt a new practice.

 

Also, Read: Abdominal Pain

with Dr. Sahil Kapoor

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