Reported December 2005

BACKGROUND: Nothing works better at getting rid of disease-causing viruses than simply washing one's hands with old-fashioned soap and water. That advice comes from the largest and most comprehensive scientific study ever done to compare the effectiveness of hand hygiene products.

THE STUDY: Scientists at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill studied how effective 14 different hand hygiene agents performed in reducing bacteria and viruses from the hands after a 10-second exposure. Previous studies had participants clean their hands for 30 seconds, even though most people, including busy health care personnel, don't spend that much time washing up. Subjects first cleaned their hands, which were then exposed to a harmless bacterium and a virus comparable to disease-causing organisms. Then the subjects cleaned their hands with various agents, after which the scientists measured how much of the bacteria and virus remained. Among the viruses studied is one that causes the common cold, along with viruses that cause hepatitis A, acute gastroenteritis, and other illnesses.

THE RESULTS:

The study showed that after a short exposure time of 10 seconds, nearly all the hand hygiene products reduced 90 percent of bacteria on the hands. But waterless alcohol-based hand wipes only removed about 50 percent of bacteria from the subjects' hands.

What Are Microbes: A microorganism or microbe is an organism that is so small that it is invisible to the naked eye. The study of microorganisms is called microbiology. Microbes can be helpful or harmful. Some microbes are necessary for human life: helping digest food and aiding the immune system. The less friendly types include viruses, bacteria, and parasites, which can cause disease when our immune system can't fight them off.

The American Society for Microbiology contributed to the information contained in the TV portion of this report.

If you would like more information, please contact:

For more information on Hand Washing Research:
Stephanie Crayton
Media Relations Manager
University of North Carolina Health Care System
(919) 966-2860
scrayton@unch.unc.edu

For more information about microbiology:

American Society for Microbiology
1752 N Street, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20036-2904
(202) 737-3600
http://www.asm.org

FACTOID...

Health-care associated infections rank among the top five causes of death, causing about 90,000 deaths each in the United States.

Hand hygiene agents have been shown to reduce the number of infections related to health care environments.