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The Importance of Hand Washing
The most important thing that you can do to keep from getting sick is to wash your
hands.
By frequently washing your hands, you wash away germs that you have picked up from other
people, or from contaminated surfaces, or from animals and animal waste.
What happens if you do not wash your hands frequently?
You pick up germs from other sources and then you infect yourself when you:
 Touch your eyes
 Or your nose
 Or your mouth.
One of the most common ways people catch colds is by rubbing their nose or their eyes after
their hands have been contaminated with the cold virus.
You can also spread germs directly to others or onto surfaces that other people touch. And
before you know it, everybody around you is getting sick.
The important thing to remember is that, in addition to colds, some pretty serious diseases --
like hepatitis A, meningitis, and infectious diarrhea -- can easily be prevented if people make a
habit of washing their hands.
When should you wash your hands?
You should wash your hands often. Probably more often than you do now because you can't
see germs with the naked eye or smell them, so you do not really know where they are hiding.
It is especially important to wash your hands
 Before, during, and after you prepare food
 Before you eat, and after you use the bathroom
 After handling animals or animal waste
 When your hands are dirty, and
 More frequently when someone in your home is sick.
CDC cites five common household scenarios in which disease-causing germs can be
transmitted by contaminated hands.
1. Hands to food: germs are transmitted from unclean hands to food, usually by an
infected food preparer who didn't handwash after using the toilet. The germs are then
passed to those who eat the food.
2. Infected infant to hands to other children: during diaper changing, germs are passed
from an infant with diarrhea to the hands of a parent; if the parent doesn't immediately

wash his or her hands before handling another child, the germs that cause diarrhea are
passed to the second child.
3. Food to hands to food: germs are transmitted from raw, uncooked foods, such as
chicken, to hands; the germs are then transferred to other foods, such as salad. Cooking
the raw food kills the initial germs, but the salad remains contaminated.
4. Nose, mouth, or eyes to hands to others: germs that cause colds, eye infections, and
other illnesses can spread to the hands by sneezing, coughing, or rubbing the eyes and
then can be transferred to other family members or friends.
5. Food to hands to infants: germs from uncooked foods are transferred to hands and
then to infants. If a parent handling raw chicken, for example, doesn't wash his or her
hands before tending to an infant, they could transfer germs such as salmonella from the
food to the infant.
Handwashing can prevent the transfer of germs in all five of these scenarios. CDC recommends
vigorous scrubbing with warm, soapy water for at least 15 seconds.
What is good hand washing technique?
There is more to hand washing than you think! By rubbing your hands vigorously with soapy
water, you pull the dirt and the oily soils free from your skin. The soap lather suspends both the
dirt and germs trapped inside and are then quickly washed away.
Follow these four simple steps to keeping hands clean:
1. Wet your hands with warm running water.
2. Add soap, then rub your hands together, making a soapy lather. Do this away from the
running water for at least 15 seconds, being careful not to wash the lather away. Wash
the front and back of your hands, as well as between your fingers and under your nails.
3. Rinse your hands well under warm running water. Let the water run back into the sink,
not down to your elbows.
4. Dry hands thoroughly with a clean towel. Then turn off the water with a clean paper
towel and dispose in a proper receptacle.

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