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Sunday, July 08, 2007

Kiwis Hand Hygiene Habits And Attitudes Worrying

16 April 2006

Kiwis Hand Hygiene Habits And Attitudes Worrying Given Threat Of Viral Pandemic

New research indicates that New Zealanders are not cleaning their hands well enough to stop the spread of disease.

Gary Moller comments:
This is hardly a surprise, since the teaching and practice of hand washing during childhood is a farce. If people do not have this essential habit in place during their formative years, it is unlikely that it ever will be. The sad fact is that childcare facilities and schools are physically and financially unable to provide proper hand washing training for children.

Here is what I have written about hand washing in the past. Go to this PDF, download it and then click on the link to "I wash my hands - Yeah right!" Enjoy the read

1 comment:

Wayne said...

when was the last viral pandemic that killed large numbers in the west? was it 1918? what was the standard of living of people back then? did they all have adequate fresh fruit and vegetables every day to give them the nutrients to keep their immune systems in good shape?
Why havent large numbers of people died of bird flu outside of china? forty odd people died of it in china, what was tehir standard of health, were thy eating fresh fruit and vegetables every day>??
how common is it there for chinese to come into contact with live poultry compared to western countires? bird flu is a droplet spread infection, the Chinese have a cultural habit of spitting in public and are well known to live in high population densities, higher than in most western countries.
Your best protection against bugs aside from washing your hands, is keeping your immune system in good shape with you guessed it fresh fruit and vegetables and possibly a good anti oxidant. anti oxidants may not stop you becoming infected but your chances of recovering faster and coming thorugh a serious pandemic type virus are far better.
the introduction of vacines also coincided with improved transportation which improved delivery of fresh produce to the cities, if your immune system isnt up to scratch even a vaccine may not save you. tests done on lab rats show if they missed a nights sleep on the day of taking a vacine then the vaccination offered no protection.
we're not in the situation that occured where europeans introduced viruses to societies that had never encounteres those types of viruses before and were unable to gain widespread immunity and died.
sure the pandemic may hit and sure a lot of people will get fit, but I think the mortality rate will depend on a lot more than washing our hands.