How hand washing could slow down spread of a pandemic

In light of the coronavirus outbreak, public health guidelines all over the world continue to emphasize that handwashing is vital to control the spread of the virus.When it comes to preventing viral infections — especially those that spread via droplets from coughs and sneezes, washing the hands is always the first-line measure. Now, in the midst of the recent coronavirus outbreak, correctly washing the hands remains public health officials’ top advice when it comes to controlling infection rates. In their guidelines on how to prevent infection with the novel coronavirus, the WHO states that people should “wash hands frequently with soap and water. ”Still, people have difficulty in understanding the principles of hand washing and continue to doubt that something as simple as basic personal hygiene could have any effect in the context of an epidemic. 

A study from MIT, used simulations to determine if and how better personal hygiene might affect the rate of disease transmission. They found that 30% of people do not wash their hands and that 95% of people who wash hands do not wash them properly. The CDC suggests that best practices for hand washing include not only rinsing the hands with water, but also applying soap and scrubbing the palms, the back of the hands, between the fingers, and under the fingernails. A person should scrub for at least 20 seconds before rinsing the soap and drying the hands with a clean towel. However, most of the people who do wash their hands, many never apply soap and spend under 15 seconds on hand washing. It is a well known fact that proper hygiene is vital to spread the transmission of any infectious disease and that same policy applies to the Covid Pandemic as well. In fact proper personal hygiene and wearing of masks has been shown to be as effective as a vaccine. The pandemic is not only controlled with drugs and hospitals and isolation. It is to be treated also by public education on the preventive measures which is an extremely important step in the aim to slow down this pandemic.

The article is written by Dr. Rohan Sequeira, Consultant General Medicine, Jaslok Hospital & Research Centre