Washing of hands now more important than ever
By Beverly Creamer
Advertiser Staff Writer
Something every parent teaches their child as a toddler has now become an important preventive health ritual in the war against terrorism.
The simple act of hand-washing could help avert a skin infection from anthrax. For instance, people should scrub up after handling mail, recommended Postmaster General John Potter.
And now, for the first time, the state Health Department's Communicable
Diseases Division is putting together a memorandum for distribution throughout the department to explain how to properly wash your hands.
It may sound silly, but given the circumstances, it's no laughing matter.
"We are recommending 15 seconds," said Bart Aronoff, a planner within the division. "That's a 50 percent increase over the standard recommendation. Some people say 30 seconds, but almost everything happens in the first second. For anyone who isn't doing surgery, there wouldn't be anything left (after one second)."
Any soap will do, said Aronoff, but it's important that it hasn't been sitting around in a scummy dish collecting the run-off from previous washings. So keep your bar soap in a self-draining holder which is cleaned thoroughly between bars.
Even better is soap from a liquid soap dispenser.
Lather both front and back of hands, between fingers and under fingernails, said Aronoff. Then make sure it's all rinsed off and down the drain, and not running down your elbows. The rinsing-off procedure is especially important, as that would remove anthrax spores if they were present.
Aronoff warned that sanitizing liquids that evaporate such as Purell will not work to clean hands in this situation.
"What is involved in this case is not sterilization. What's involved is removing the things mechanically from the skin. It's the same as dirt: you want to get it off," he said.
"Those alcohol-type products, while they're good at sterilizing, they're not going to kill anthrax spores because they're almost impossible to kill."
Aronoff said that there could be a tremendous additional benefit of increased hand-washing.
"If people actually do it," he said, "it will also definitely reduce the spread of cold viruses and the flu."
