WHO has a whole list, they celebrate a lot of days. A new day, a new theme, a new agenda with a mission to accomplish betterment of the World. May 5th is celebrated as World Hand Hygiene Day.
It sounds so simple, washing hands right? I mean to some, they even wonder why there is a need to even assign a day to celebrate it, raise awareness on it or however you want to put it. But (and yes I know there is always a But) there is indeed a need to spread this message across.
The campaign that WHO runs is ‘Save Lives: Clean Your Hands’ all year around.
The main idea is, they say that cleaning hands especially in people who are involved with providing health care facility, prevents any other infection/ virus entering the patients system. A simple act of cleaning your hands creates a safer environment, so why not do it? It hardly takes a minute.
And not just for health care workers, but for every one of us adopting this simple habit will make us healthier.
Infections like:
Common cold, cough, conjunctivitis, diarrhoea, stomach infections, flu, and others can be avoided to a certain extent. How? Well, as advertised, truly these infections enter our system through nose and mouth. And how do you think they reach there? Mostly the transporter is our hands. They pick up the infections while we come in contact with any infected person place or thing. And then unlike Jason Statham, the transporter here does the delivery to wrong destination (our nose/mouth). So just divert your hands to the wash basin and wash them off.
When All Should We Wash Hands:
- Preparing food, Before & After eating
- Giving medicine, Treating Wounds or Dealing with a Sick person
- After & Before using contact lenses
- Blowing nose, Sneezing, Coughing
- Most commonly known after using Washrooms, Changing diapers
And whenever you feel your hands are dirty. Nothing wrong with cleaning them once a while
Now why the campaign of Save Lives: because it does. 150 years ago when the concept was introduced in a hospital, they ended up reducing the number of deaths by 5 times before hand washing was practiced when dealing with patients.
We are the lucky ones to be in cities where medical facilities are at par, where hygiene is second nature and not something that has to be thought of as a consideration. However in remote areas even today, in third world countries, in war zones, this practice becomes the difference between life and death.
Another important reason is the evolution, just like us even the germs/infections/ viruses are getting stronger and resistant to antibiotics and drugs. In those scenarios prevention is our best bet.
Alas! getting your hands dirty to do something good is nice, but keeping them that way is dangerous and risky, so let’s pledge to help WHO and spread the cleanliness around.