A family health physician, Dr Mojoyin Oni, says healthcare workers needs to cultivate regular hand washing habits to lower the chances of getting infected with viral diseases and to save patients’ lives.
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Oni in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Friday in Ibadan said this had become necessary as viral diseases were increasingly causing epidemics.
According to her p, healthcare workers are at the risk of getting an infection while they are treating patients.
“Hands are the main pathways of germ transmission during health care.
“Hand washing is, therefore, an effective tool to avoid the transmission of harmful germs and prevent healthcare-associated infections.
“Preventing the spread of germs is, especially, important in hospitals,” she said.
She said healthcare workers involved in patient care should be concerned about hand hygiene and make it a habit to engage in regular hand washing to save their lives and those of the patients.
Oni said that proper hand hygiene involved washing your hands as many times as necessary with soap and water for a minimum of 60 seconds.
“A healthcare provider should wash his or her hands before touching a patient, after touching the patient and after exposure to bodily fluids.
“Effective hand washing technique includes washing the hands under a running tap with soap, all surfaces of the hands including the back and wrists must be scrubbed throughly for hand washing to be effective.
“Washing hands with soap and water will remove substantially more disease causing organisms than washing hands with water alone,” she said.
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