Washing Your Hands – The Key To Staying Healthy

Germs are everywhere. Most of them are harmless and some are actually good for us. However, it's true that viruses and bacteria can be harmful, from the common cold and flu to bacterial food poisioning.

Keep germs away with hand washing

Hand washing is proven to be one of the best ways to prevent illness and the spread of disease. In fact, encouraging good hand washing practices has been shown to decrease the number of days children take off school due to illness.

Hand washing works by cleansing the skin of pathogens including bacteria and viruses. In everyday life, it prevents infection and illness from spreading between family members and to a larger extent, through a whole community.

You should always wash your hands:

• before preparing food
• after handling uncooked meat and poultry
• before eating
• after coughing, sneezing or blowing your nose
  
• after using the bathroom
• after touching animals or anything in an animal's environment
• after caring for anyone else who is unwell.

Using hand sanitisers to keep hands clean

If soap and water are not available, another option ito reduce harmful germs on your hands is to use waterless 'fast-acting' hand sanitisers. Alcohol-based sanitisers act quickly and effectively to kill most types of bacteria and germs on skin, especially if your hands are not dirty or greasy.