14 September 2010
Is washing your hands enough to prevent infections or stop them from spreading? No, drying them is equally important.
Frequently people give up drying their hands and wipe them on their clothes instead, but hand-hygiene is a key part of infection control and drying hands after washing is a very important part of the process.
University of Bradford researchers in Britain looked at different methods of hand drying, and their effect on transfer of bugs from the hands to other surfaces, said a Bradford release.
The different methods included paper towels, traditional hand dryers that rely on evaporation, and a new model of hand dryer, which rapidly strips water off the hands using high velocity air jets, reports the Journal of Applied Microbiology.
Our bodies naturally have bugs called commensals all over them. However, bugs from other sources, such as raw meat, can also survive on hands, and can be easily transferred to other surfaces.
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