The first full week of December is National Handwashing Awareness Week. It’s a timely topic, because it’s the time of year when respiratory infections are prevalent, including the common cold, flu, and pneumonia; and COVID-19 still presents significant health risks.
The week is sponsored by the Henry the Hand Foundation. Henry the Hand is the hand-shaped character promoting the need for handwashing, the brainchild of Will Sawyer, MD, an international infection prevention expert. It includes a letter from Henry the Hand, a letter from Dr. Sawyer, and school and classroom resource kits. Dr. Sawyer promotes four principles of hand awareness:
- Wash your hands when they are dirty and before eating.
- Do not cough into your hands.
- Do not sneeze into your hands.
- Above all, do not put your fingers into your eyes, nose or mouth.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) also reminds us that keeping our hands clean is one of the most important steps we can take to avoid getting sick and spreading germs to the people around us. Many diseases and conditions are spread by not cleaning our hands properly. Here are five important things the CDC tells us about handwashing:
- Use soap, which is more effective than using water alone.
- Wash for 20 seconds, about the length of time it takes to hum the Happy Birthday song twice.
- Be thorough, lathering and scrubbing and paying attention to the back of hands, between fingers, and under nails.
- Dry using a clean towel or air-drying, because germs can be transferred to and from wet hands more easily.
- Use hand sanitizer with at least 60% alcohol if a sink to wash hands with soap and water is unavailable, cover all hand surfaces and don’t rinse or wipe off the hand sanitizer until it is dry; then wash hands with soap and water as soon as possible.
In its history of handwashing, Global Handwashing Partnership says that while handwashing was first advocated to reduce infection and save lives by Hungarian doctor Ignaz Semmelweis in 1846 and a few years later by nurse Florence Nightingale, it was not widely adopted. In the 1980s, when a string of foodborne outbreaks and healthcare-associated infections led to public concern, the CDC identified hand hygiene as an important way to prevent the spread of infection as proponents of the first nationally endorsed hand hygiene guidelines.
Clean hands can save lives. Diarrheal diseases and pneumonia are the top two killers of young children around the world, and washing hands properly with soap and water can prevent many of them. Global Handwashing Day is celebrated on October 15 each year.