You can't Beat Soap and Water

The age old technique of washing hand certainly have it few thousand years of history backing.

But looking at today soap, there have many variance & additives in it. One must beware of the type of soap that they buy for their purpose..

My opinions is buying the natural soap is better than the fancy one.



You can't Beat Soap and Water
By John von Radowitz, PA Science Correspondent

For ridding hands of viruses, nothing beats old fashioned soap and water, scientists have discovered.

The biggest study yet comparing handwashing products found modern disinfectant cleansers were not good at tackling resistant viruses.

Soap and water worked better, because the infectious agents were simply removed from the skin and flushed down the drain.

Among the viruses susceptible to soap were those which caused the common cold, hepatitis A, acute gastroenteritis and polio.

The researchers, from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA, recommended that ordinary soap should be used in hospitals as well as waterless hand rubs and wipes.

They wrote in the American Journal of Infection Control: “Although viruses are a less common cause of health care associated infections than are bacteria, in situations in which infection with viruses is likely.. the use of soap and water washes should be considered.”

Antimicrobial agents were most efficient for reducing bacteria on the hands. But alcohol-based products – widely used in hospitals because of their convenience – performed relatively poorly.

Alcohol rubs became significantly less effective after hands were contaminated and washed a number of times over. And waterless wipes only removed half the bacteria from the hands.

The study was the first to test the ability of 14 different hand hygiene agents to tackle both bacteria and viruses.

It was also the first to investigate the effect of cleaning hands for just 10 seconds – the average time spent by doctors, nurses and other healthcare workers.

Dr Emily Sickbert-Bennet, who co-led the research, said: “Previous studies have had people clean their hands for 30 seconds or so, but that’s not what health-care workers usually do in practice, and we wanted to test the products under realistic conditions.”

A total of 62 adults took part in the study, in which five tests were performed on each of the 14 agents.

Volunteers first cleaned their hands and were then contaminated with the harmless bacterium Serratia marcescens and the virus MS2 bacteriophage.

MS2 is also harmless to humans, but similar in design to other viruses which can cause illness, such as hepatitis A.

The researchers said the results suggested it would be wrong for hospitals and other institutions to rely solely on alcohol-based cleaning products.

“Given the trend of a reduced efficacy of alcohol-based handrubs with multiple episodes, it is prudent to recommend traditional hand hygiene with an antiseptic agent or a non-antimicrobial soap periodically throughout the day,” they wrote.

Poor hand hygiene is known to contribute to hospital acquired infections such as MRSA, which cause an estimated 5,000 deaths in Britain each year.

The Government’s “cleanyourhands” campaign introduced through the National Patient Safety Agency aims to improve hygiene standards in the NHS.

A key element of the campaign is the placing of handrubs at the foot of beds and other places where staff have patient contact.

International research suggests that improved hand hygiene could reduce hospital infection rates by between 10% and 50%.

A Department of Health spokesperson said: “We agree with this useful study stating that both hand washing and hand disinfection are important in preventing patients from becoming infected.

“As the study suggests, the use of alcohol-based handrubs helps to improve hand hygiene compliance at locations where sinks are not available. Hand rubs can be positioned allowing staff to decontaminate their hands at regular intervals before each episode of patient contact.”


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