VANCOUVER – British Columbia health authorities are reiterating the importance of hand hygiene, including handwashing, as one of the strongest – and simplest – precautions to help control the spread of respiratory infections, including influenza.
Earlier this week the Canadian Medical Association Journal (CMAJ) published an article that provided misleading information about the effectiveness of handwashing. The article (“Conflict emerges over value of handwashing as a preventive flu transmission measure”) cited a report prepared for the Council of Canadian Academies. A multidisciplinary panel was tasked with reviewing existing studies about how influenza is transmitted, as well as how effective N95 respirators and surgical masks are in helping prevent the spread of influenza among health care workers. The report concluded that hand hygiene is a key control measure for both seasonal and pandemic influenza.
“The panel noted that there were no specific trials that focused on hand hygiene, including handwashing, as the sole mechanism that prevents the spread of influenza”, explained Dr. Bonnie Henry, physician epidemiologist at the BC Centre for Disease Control, an agency of the Provincial Health Services Authority. “But that was misinterpreted by the CMAJ article to say there is no evidence to support hand hygiene as an important control measure for the flu in the community. We know that the flu virus can live for several hours on surfaces outside the body. If you touch contaminated surfaces, you have the potential to pick the virus up on your hands and infect yourself by touching your face, eyes and nose.”
“The facts are simple,” said Dr. Perry Kendall, BC Provincial Health Officer. “Let there be no confusion: handwashing or using an alcohol-based hand sanitizer remains an easy, effective and essential step that everyone can and should take to prevent oneself from getting sick. That’s a message we’d like to say loud and clear for everyone in our province to hear. Wash your hands. If you do that, plus the other basic steps like coughing or sneezing into your sleeve or in a tissue, you’ll go a long way in staving off infection or preventing its spread. Infection control really does start with you.”
For more information on hand hygiene, including handwashing posters and videos, as well as pandemic H1N1 influenza, please visit:
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