Hand Washing With Soap
Handwashing with soap (HWWS) is among the most effective and inexpensive ways to prevent diarrheal diseases and pneumonia, which together are responsible for the majority of child deaths. This behavior is projected to become a significant contribution to meeting the Millennium Development Goal of reducing deaths among children under the age of five by two-thirds by 2015. October 15 has been appointed to become Global Handwashing Day in accordance with year 2008 as the International Year of Sanitation by the United Nations.
Hands often act as vectors that carry disease-causing pathogens from person to person, either through direct contact or indirectly via surfaces. Humans can spread bacteria by touching other people's hand, hair, nose, and face. Hands that have been in contact with human or animal feces, bodily fluids like nasal excretions, and contaminated foods or water can transport bacteria, viruses and parasites to unwitting hosts. Hand washing with soap works by interrupting the transmission of disease.
Washing hands with water alone is significantly less effective than washing hands with soap in terms of removing germs. Although using soap in hand washing breaks down the grease and dirt that carry most germs, using soap also means additional time consumed during the massaging, rubbing, and friction to dislodge them from fingertips, and between the fingers, in comparison with just using water for handwashing. Effective hand-washing with soap takes 8 – 15 seconds, followed by thorough rinsing with running water.
Read more about Hand Washing With Soap: Disease Prevention in Handwashing With Soap, Critical Times in Hand Washing With Soap, Awareness of Hand Washing With Soap, See Also
Famous quotes containing the words hand, washing and/or soap:
“Then the LORD said to Moses, “Stretch out your hand over the sea, so that the water may come back upon the Egyptians, upon their chariots and chariot drivers.” So Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and at dawn the sea returned to its normal depth. As the Egyptians fled before it, the LORD tossed the Egyptians into the sea.”
—Bible: Hebrew, Exodus 14:26,27.
“...you don’t have to be as good as white people, you have to be better or the best. When Negroes are average, they fail, unless they are very, very lucky. Now, if you’re average and white, honey, you can go far. Just look at Dan Quayle. If that boy was colored he’d be washing dishes somewhere.”
—Annie Elizabeth Delany (b. 1891)
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—Eviatar Zerubavel, U.S. sociologist, educator. The Fine Line: Making Distinctions in Everyday Life, ch. 5, University of Chicago Press (1991)