Global Handwashing Day Quiz

Washing hands with soap and water is the best way to remove all types of germs and chemicals. If soap and water are not available, use an alcohol-based hand sanitizer with at least 60% alcohol. A sanitizer does not “clean” your hands, as effectively as your soap or hand wash would. It might be effective in killing the bacteria’s exposed to your hands but a hand wash will remove the dirt, debris, germs as well as wash it away from your hands and entire body with water.

Ignaz Semmelweis was the first doctor to discover the importance for medical professionals of hand washing. In the 19th century, it was common for women to die from an illness contracted during or after childbirth, known as childbed fever. While working at an obstetric department in Vienna, Austria, Semmelweis noticed that women delivered by physicians and medical students had a much higher mortality rate than women delivered by midwives. He concluded that the problem was that physicians were handling corpses during autopsies before attending to pregnant women, and determined that hand washing would prevent them from passing on illness.

After Semmelweis initiated a mandatory hand-washing policy, the mortality rate for women delivered by doctors fell from 18 per cent to 2 per cent – the same as it was for midwives. When he began washing medical instruments, it fell to just 1 per cent. (newscientist.com)

Scrubbing hands together for at least 20 seconds is enough time for the soap to work its magic and get rid of possible contaminating bacteria.