by LBrownless@absolutehygienesolutions.com | May 4, 2016 | Hand Hygiene
We all know you should be washing your hands but are you aware of just how good it is at infection control? It’s so important, wherever you are, that you make sure you wash your hands after every toilet visit, before and after preparing food, after a cough or sneeze and when dealing with patients. Why should you wash your hands? First of all, it is the easiest way to prevent sickness in the workplace. A typical worker in an office comes in to contact with 10 MILLION germs A DAY. Toilets, and in particular, faeces, are a big source of germs, such as Salmonella and Norovirus which can give you diarrhoea. In fact you’re 31% more likely to get diarrhoea if you do not wash your hands. A single gram of human faeces—which is about the weight of a paper clip—can contain one trillion germs. These germs can get onto people’s hands and if they are not washed off can be passed from person to person and could make you sick. Bacteria can spread very quickly- in just 8 hours one bacterium could have multiplied by 17 million. Handwashing properly reduces the amount of bacteria on your hands and the chances of it spreading further. But, did you know that 1 in 10 people do not wash their hands? Say you work in an office of ten people: you probably think one person isn’t that bad. But imagine this, that one person could be the colleague opposite you who has just gone to toilet. On his or her way back to the desk, he/she has offered to do...
