Home Hygiene and Prevention of Infections

Abstract

<jats:p>Health is wealth - a famous proverb that almost everyone has heard of but may not have fully understood its essence. Health comes from maintaining cleanliness and hygiene which starts from home and expands to workplaces and public areas. By practicing hygiene in the home and everyday life settings, it will have impact significantly in reducing the global burden of infectious diseases that kills over 17 million people a year. Mainly caused by microorganisms, infections can easily spread by direct and indirect contact. Common infectious diseases include chickenpox, common cold, malaria and pertussis. These diseases tend to have specific symptoms such as fever, diarrhoea, fatigue and muscle aches. In institutional settings, such as schools and child-cares settings, information relating hand hygiene is routine. However, the home environment is one of the potential sources of transmission of infectious diseases. This situation, of course, needs to be re-evaluated and the promotion of home hygiene should be encouraged. Positive correlation has been found between home hygiene practices and risk of disease transmission in homes where the first line of defence against infectious diseases is cleaning and disinfecting plus maintaining good hand hygiene. But, the implementation for an effective policy to monitor home hygiene is rather complex due to varying determinants of health. In a nutshell, proper home hygiene and cleaning practices lead to reduced risk of spreading infectious diseases. They should form the key issues in the practice of health promotion in the community and institutions.</jats:p>

Water, sanitation, hygiene and waste disposal practices as COVID-19 response strategy: insights from Bangladesh

“…Handwashing is a common and essential hygienic practice to protect from infectious pathogens (Brauer et al 2020 ; Mushi and Shao 2020 ), as transmission is usually strengthened by the physical contact between humans (Nicolaides et al 2020 ). Evidently, practicing hygiene in the home and everyday life contexts is vital to reducing the burden of infectious diseases, including COVID-19 (Lai and Kaur 2020 ). Over 95% of research participants self-reported that they washed their hands with soap, especially before meals and after using the toilet.…”

Water, sanitation, hygiene practices, health and nutritional status among children before and during the COVID-19 pandemic: longitudinal evidence from remote areas of Dailekh and Achham districts in Nepal

“…Handwashing with soap is a hygiene practice commonly promoted to protect from infectious pathogens [60,65,66] and reduce the burden of infectious diseases, including COVID-19 [21,60,67]. Over 94.2% of the respondents self-reported washing their hands with soap 5 to 10 times per day during endline compared to 19.6% at baseline, especially after defecation (74.3%) and before meals (67.4%).…”