Although now it may seem an irrational idea, even before the 1800s, handwashing was not a common practice, even within the medical environment. It was not until 1847 when the Hungarian doctor, Ignác Philipp Semmelweis, promulgates his theory about the contagion of puerperal fever and the poor hygiene of the hands of the health professionals of the time and proposes the mandatory washing of hands with chlorinated lime. This theory would cost him his reputation as a doctor, but it has saved the lives of millions of people from easily preventable diseases. Semmelweis today is known as "the savior of mothers" since it was he who managed to associate the morbidity and mortality of certain patients who gave birth to those who attended them (Stewardson and Pittet, 2011).
Ignác observed in the hospital where he worked, the General Hospital of Vienna, where there were only two delivery rooms, that which where doctors and medical students attended after practices and visits to the morgue, was closely related to the high rate of sick patients. and deceased. On the other hand, the other room, controlled by midwives with better hygienic conditions, did not have as much incidence, reason why the now considered father of the antiseptic procedures managed to connect the dots and reach a conclusion. He supposed that in some way, "cadaverous particles" clung to the hands and were transported from the morgue to the delivery room and these were the cause of the infection, so that proper hand hygiene was necessary. However, the recognition of this fact would come after his death, in the second half of the nineteenth century, by the identification of "cadaverous particles" as pathogenic microorganisms by Louis Pasteur and Robert Koch (Miranda and Navarrete, 2008).
October 15, World Handwashing Day, is a celebration that has been held since 2008, which was chosen by the General Assembly of the United Nations to be the International Year of Sanitation. The purpose of this day is to promote the culture of handwashing with soap and make public its benefits. The latter have been proven for many years by an extremely extensive number of studies and clinical trials.
Among the benefits of hand washing are:
-Reduce the incidence of diarrhea by almost half
-Reduce the rate of respiratory infections
-Minimize the incidence of skin diseases, eye infections such as trachoma and intestinal parasitic infections such as ascariasis and trichuriasis (Global Handwashing Partnership, 2008). These complications are caused by the transient microbial flora of the skin (completely different from the nonpathogenic resident flora) that contaminates the hands by contact with everyday objects, secretions and fecal material. Among these pathogenic microorganisms are Escherichia coli, Salmonella spp., Shigella spp., Clostridium perfringens, Giardia lamblia, Taenia eggs, Norovirus, hepatitis A virus, among others (Hernandez, 2003).
To maximize the effectiveness of hand washing, some recommendations should be taken into account, starting with a duration of at least 15 seconds. The use of an adequate amount of soap and plenty of water, drying with disposable paper towels using this to close the key and avoid repeated exposure of hot water because of the risk of developing dermatitis, are also important factors for proper procedure (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2002).
The steps for a proper handwashing technique according to the World Health Organization are:
- Wet your hands
- Apply enough soap to cover the entire hand
- Rub the palms together
- Rub the palm of the right hand against the back of the left hand by interlacing the fingers, and vice versa
- Rub the palms of each other with their fingers interlaced
- Rub the back of the fingers of one hand against the palm of the opposite hand, holding the fingers together Surrounding the left thumb with the palm of the right hand, rub it with a rotating motion, and vice versa.
- Rub the tip of the fingers of the right hand against the palm of the left hand, making a rotation movement, and vice versa.
- Rinse your hands
- Dry them with a single-use towel.
- Use the towel to close the tap.
To suffer or not a disease is a simple washing of hands away. This is the easiest, fastest and most economical method to avoid diseases caused mostly by bacteria and parasites. It is necessary to make this, more than a habit, a constant need.
In everyday life there are key moments that require a hand cleaning that we should not forget: after touching your pet, after going to the bathroom or before eating. On the other hand, for health professionals, hand hygiene is an obligation that must be fulfilled for their patients and that can not be omitted for any circumstance.
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