Personal hygiene begins with a hand wash
February 1st 2004

Infections are spread via microbes. These microbes require a medium of infection, favourable conditions, and the right kind of target host or object in order to multiply and spread. They can spread either from person to person, via objects, or from various contact surfaces. Alarmingly, studies show that infections spread via hand contact are one of the most common kinds. Moreover, hand borne infections are directly attributable to our carelessness when washing and drying hands, explains Jaana Tiura, product group manager, Hand Towels at Mets Tissue.

It is a little known fact that most people wash their hands in the wrong way; a proper hand wash is a skill in itself. For optimum results in hand washing, we need to use the correct basic washing technique. Start by rinsing hands in lukewarm water. After this, use liquid soap to wash carefully, including the wrists, fingertips and thumbs. After the wash, rinse hands in running water and dry them with a paper towel. Finally, turn off the tap using a paper towel. A careful and thorough hand wash need not take too long.

Although washing has been widely discussed in studies on hand hygiene, less attention has been paid to drying hands. Studies suggest that moist hands carry up to 50% more bacteria than carefully dried ones. When using a paper towel, drying also physically removes microbes, and it has been demonstrated that careful drying can reduce their number by up to 91%. It should also be borne in mind that if we wash and dry our hands dozens of times a day, the type of paper we use for drying also matters. Soft paper irritates the skin less than rough paper and roughened skin will harbour more microbes. So, using soft paper further helps to maintain hand hygiene.

One of the most important features of a paper towel system is its dispensing mechanism, which should work in such a way that there is no need to touch the dispenser itself when taking a sheet. A good dispenser should present half of the towel about to be used. According to a study conducted by Mets Tissue, Finlands leading soft tissue manufacturer, and the countrys State Technical Research Centre, the number of aerobic bacteria around the mouth of a dispenser can increase as much as 20-fold in the two weeks following the beginning of a test. On the other hand, the surface hygiene of traditional, disposable paper towels remains excellent throughout. It is therefore important that we only touch the paper, not the dispenser.

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