It is really that important to wash one's hands. If all people practiced proper hand washing with soap, it could save approximately 1 million lives every year, according to a 2003 Lancet Infectious Diseases report.
A single gram of fecal matter is estimated to contain at least 10 million varieties of bacteria and 100 million different viruses. Washing ones hands with warm water and soap for at least 20 seconds after exposure to feces could help prevent up to 47% of the 1.7 billion annual worldwide cases of diarrheal diseases, which causes the deaths of over 750,000 children under the age of five every year.
More about hand washing :
- The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends humming the “Happy Birthday” song two times as the optimal minimum length of time to wash hands.
- Less than one-fifth of mothers in developing countries are thought to wash their hands, which may be due to lack of a water supply.
- Over 20% of the cases of the common cold could be prevented by proper hand washing hygiene, according to the CDC.
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Discussion Comments
This is worthy and timely, not just for health but as a clarion sanitary call to all citizens in the world in rural and urban dwellings online and offline. Since this scientific data comes from the CDC, a noted research center in the USA, almost all who are knowledgeable of the scientific process of infection will heed the warning posed by this research support data from CDC. Despite Nigeria's epidemiological success in the ebola virus war and polio, a one year interruption of polio -experts like Professor Wale Tomori, a former Vice Chancellor, virologist and expert on lhasa fever and Rotary International's Michael McGovern are still warning that we must protect the success already gained and step up routine immunizations in all endemic areas and maintain personal and public hygiene everywhere if we are to remain globally clean now and in the future.
Hand washing is also a discipline that must be taught, popularized possibly with incentives, just as polio immunization couldn't have been possible without incentives in rural and fundamentalist communities that at first rejected vaccination and vaccinators for cultural and priority factors.
Health education for adults is not just knowledge of the consequences of disease, but also a continued health behavior literacy and knowledge of specific actions and results such as hand washing and prevention of serious infectious diseases such as diarrhea and all faeco-oral dieseases.
The Lancet research paper findings need to be published and republished by major and community print tabloids and online blogs and social media need to be involved as repeated here: hand-washing
could save approximately 1 million lives every year, according to a 2003 Lancet Infectious Diseases report.
A single gram of fecal matter is estimated to contain at least 10 million varieties of bacteria and 100 million different viruses. Washing one's hands with warm water and soap for at least 20 seconds after exposure to feces could help prevent up to 47 percent of the 1.7 billion annual worldwide cases of diarrhea diseases, which causes the deaths of over 750,000 children under the age of five every year. This is a save our lives post.
Interestingly, what if hand-washing can also prevent the common cold, which is a worldwide disease. I laugh and laugh at anyone toying with the discipline or publicity of hand-washing. I also know how much it costs the USA annually in terms of sick-leave and job loss or undone duties due to this specific discomfort. This implies nobody's immunity is more sophisticated above the basic hygiene of hand-washing!
So the almighty adage 'cleanliness is next to godliness' is above all other secondary care or medication we are inured in?
Even though you can't compare the mortality or fatality figures of common cold, aka catarrh, in Africa with stomach ache or ulcers or cancer, it does have its own pain and associated listlessness and the victim will like to separate himself from friends and families.
May I ask WISEGEEK and Lancet experts?
Are those in Antarctica vulnerable?-- where there are no rains and snow yet it very cold and I naively assume may not sustain some bacteria.
Watching for more of this public -real global health tips for compliant actions by all.
This is entirely true. Now, go and wash your hands.
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