From Covid to colds, hand hygiene reduces infections

(ANSA) - ROME, OCTOBER 13 - "Washing your hands with soap and water can prevent one in five respiratory infections, such as colds or flu, and a gastrointestinal infection in three". This was remembered by the Cdc (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention), the public health control body of the United States, in view of the Global Handwashing Day, the day dedicated to this simple 'life-saving' gesture that will be celebrated on October 15th.

    In the last year and a half of the Covid pandemic, the importance of proper hand hygiene and cleaning has often been emphasized, especially when preparing food, before eating and after coughing, sneezing or blowing your nose.

   Education in the correct washing of hands with water and soap in the community, specifies the CDC, can reduce the number of people who get sick with diarrhea by about 23-40 percent, reduce absenteeism due to gastrointestinal diseases in students from 29-57 to one hundred, reduce respiratory diseases in the general population by about 16-21 percent. To raise awareness, Global Handwashing Day was established in 2008.

    The current moment, which sees us enter a new normal, beyond Covid-19, "provides a unique impetus to institutionalize hand hygiene, often neglected in the past, as a fundamental component health care ", explains Globalhandwashing, the partnership promoting the initiative that brings together public international agencies and private companies.

   (HANDLE).