Illnesses You Can Prevent By Hand Washing!

We live in a dangerous world where every few years, dangerous new epidemics like Coronavirus, Ebola, SARS, MERS, Avian Flu wreak havoc and claim thousands of lives. Lifestyle illnesses and non-communicable diseases like diabetes, arthritis, hypertension, heart disorders, obesity and cancer are on the rise. The picture is bleak.

But the good news according to researchers is that as many as a million deaths can be avoided every year if people do something as simple as maintaining hand hygiene.

It is not an exaggeration to say that washing hands can save lives.

How does hand washing help?

Our hands are a magnet for harmful microbes. We touch surfaces and things that had been handled by others like bus or train handrails, currency notes, toilet flush, elevator buttons foods etc.

Any of these objects could contain deadly viruses or bacteria left there when it was touched by an infected person. And when we touch our faces, eyes or mouth with unwashed hands, these microbes enter our bodies and make us ill.

But just 1 minute of thorough hand washing can reduce the microbial count of our hands by 99%! Soap and hand wash can rupture and destroy multiple colonies of germs. The rest are simply removed and washed away.

A list of illnesses that can be prevented by washing hands

• COVID-19

Though it is a respiratory disease, which spreads when an infected person coughs or sneezes in the vicinity. But the virus can live on objects for as long as 72 hours. If you handle an object where the viruses are alive they can travel into your body. But washing hands can remove the coronavirus from your hands.

• Flu

The influenza virus spreads the same way as coronavirus and can enter a healthy person either directly from the infected person or through contaminated objects.

• Conjunctivitis

This painful disease is transmitted when you touch anything that came in contact with the fluids secreted by the infected person’s eyes.

• Diarrhoea

Diarrhoea is caused by viruses like norovirus, rotavirus or bacteria like salmonella or campylobacter. Poor sanitation or personal hygiene can make diarrhoea contagious especially if the faecal matter of the infected person ends up in your hands.

• Typhoid

Salmonella typhi, the bacteria that causes typhoid can be present in the faecal matter of an infected person. And if the sanitation infrastructure is shoddy, our hands will come in contact with particles of faecal matter.

• Chickenpox and measles

Both are severe viral infections and the pathogens may enter your system by simple hand contact unless you wash them thoroughly.

• Hepatitis A

The virus that causes Hepatitis A spreads through hand contact with an infected person’s bodily fluids or faecal matter.

• Food poisoning

It's not just infected food that gives you food poisoning. You may be eating fresh foods from decontaminated utensils but your hands could be the cause of the infection. Many of us have colonies of staphylococcus bacteria on our skin and these bacteria can cause food poisoning. But taking showers everyday and washing hands before eating can prevent many cases of food poisoning.

Just a little bit of caution and personal hygiene on our part can keep not just us but our loved ones safe from dangerous illnesses.