A Consultant Family and Lifestyle Medicine Physician, Dr Moyosore Makinde, has advised the public to incorporate hand hygiene practice into their daily lives to prevent and control transmission of infectious diseases.
Makinde, who works with the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital (LASUTH), gave the advice in an interview on Monday in Lagos.
She spoke in commemoration of the World Hand Hygiene Day marked annually on May 5.
The day aims to progress the goal of maintaining a global profile on the importance of hand hygiene in health care and to ‘bring people together’ in support of hand hygiene improvement globally.
The 2024 World Hand Hygiene Day had the theme: “Power of Hand Hygiene.”
Makinde, also the President, Society of Lifestyle Medicine of Nigeria (SOLONg), said that a lot of infectious diseases could be spread and contracted through close contact with one another, particularly hand shakes.
To live a healthy life, the physician advised that people should imbibe the habit of regular hand washing at homes, in the hospitals, in the market and everywhere they went to.
According to her, the COVID-19 pandemic shows clear evidence that diseases can be prevented through regular hand washing.
Makinde identified before and after eating, after using the toilets and after hand shake as key moments that required hand wash.
She explained that a good hand wash practice should be extended to the elbow using soap, under a running tap water, as recommended by the WHO.
“It is highly recommended by the WHO that we wash our hands after using the rest room, after shaking other people and before eating.
“Of course if one happened to sneeze into ones hand it is important to wash the hand, even though it is recommended that we sneeze into the elbow rather than the hand.
“This is because that same hand that someone has used to take a sneeze can be used to shake another person.
“The era of COVID-19 is a clear evidence that infectious diseases can either be contracted or prevented through close contact with hands and bodies, which made people to adopt the practice of regular hand wash or usage of hand sanitizer then.
“Unfortunately, many have dropped that practice of regular hand wash because they felt COVID-19 is over.
“To live and maintain a healthy life, the habit of regular hand wash must be made part of daily lifestyle,” Moyosore said.
Moyosore said the importance of hand hygiene could not be overemphasised particularly in hospital and care homes settings.
“If a medical personnel nurses a patient and doesn’t wash the hands, the person can transmit diseases from one patient to another.”
She advised that health workers should continually imbibe the practice of hand washing after attending to a patient and before touching another patient.
According to her, this is to ensure safety of the patient, healthcare services and that of the healthcare worker as well as the entire population at large.
NAN
