Becoming a Hygiene Hero

A guide to making cleanliness a part of your lifestyle.

There are many quotes on cleanliness: Cleanliness is next to Godliness is only one of them. The art and branch of science that deals with preserving good health is Hygiene. This term was derived from the word Hygieia, which means goddess of health.There are many quotes on cleanliness: Cleanliness is next to Godliness is only one of them. The art and branch of science that deals with preserving good health is Hygiene. This term was derived from the word Hygieia, which means goddess of health.

Hygiene is important and it is more than just cleanliness. The World Health Organisation (WHO) has established standard practices to maintain good health and to prevent diseases. This starts with good personal hygiene and it is one the most effective ways to protect ourselves from illnesses and diseases.

What is sanitisation?

The process of keeping places free from dirt, infection and disease by removing waste, trash and garbage, washing yourself and drinking clean water are some to name a few.

Why it is important?

Good sanitation can prevent you from getting sick and prevent other serious diseases. When you practice good sanitation, your family saves money on healthcare, treatment and hospitalisation. It is all a chain-cycle event; if we keep our surroundings and ourselves clean, we do not fall sick easily and are more likely to attend school/work regularly. Moreover, if we are healthy, we build a strong community!

Good health practices include: Regular hand washing especially after going to the toilet. Bathe at least once a day and practice good oral hygiene with regular brushing to prevent bad breath and oral diseases

The public health

Knowledge on health and hygiene is a core component of community health program. Health education on hygiene ensures good health of schoolchildren and reduces health risk behavior in a community. Healthy development of children and adolescents is influenced by the home and school environment

School

Health programs on health and hygiene is to implement correct good practices among school going children. A few basic steps in hygiene should be practiced by school going children. This is an important part of community development programs.Hand washing is the most inexpensive way to prevent serious illnesses.

Personal Hygiene

The human body can provide places for disease-causing microscopic organisms (germs and parasites) to grow and multiply. These places include the skin and in and around the orifices (openings) to the body. There are a few good healthy practices in maintaining good hygiene and will prevent many of these organisms from making one sick or unhealthy.

A few good personal hygiene habits include:

• Shower or a bath every day with soap and adequate water. Washing the body helps keep it free of disease-causing germs.
• Brushing your teeth is very important to maintain good oral hygiene.
• Hair wash with shampoo at least twice week
• Good toilet training starts at home like where to defecate, correct way to wash or clean up after defecation, flushing the toilet.
• Washing hands with soap and water after going to the toilet is very vital to prevent spread of bacteria.
• Washing hands before meals washes away germs and rinsing the mouth after each meals prevent our teeth from further dental caries.
• Dirty clothes should be washed with laundry soap before wearing them again. Hanging clothes in the sun helps to kill some disease-causing germs and parasites.
• Covering the nose and mouth when sneezing and coughing helps to stop germs to spread

Hygiene etiquette and practices are as per below:

• Cover the mouth and nose with a tissue when coughing and sneezing.
• Put your used/soiled tissue or facemask in a wastebasket.
• If there is no tissue paper available, cover your mouth with the upper sleeve and not your hands.

Environmental Health

Scientists have discovered many thousands of different types of germs. Only some of these cause sickness in humans. Some of these diseases happen because poor environmental health standards make it easy for disease-causing germs to live and breed and for humans to get the germs into their bodies.

Environmental health activities like maintaining:

Water sanitation: A good water supply: Adequate clean water supply from the cooperation

Ensuring the right way of liquid disposal, solid waste sanitation and sewage disposal. Proper toilets with good flushing system.

A healthy food supply – maintaining healthy habits in the kitchen by separating cooked food from uncooked raw food. Hand washing after handling raw meat and chicken.

Personal hygiene-personal care by each family member is necessary.

A healthy house – Overcrowding of homes with pets and pests infest, flies, rodents, cockroaches is not healthy. Improper ventilation and overcrowding brings about infection that is community acquired.

Poor domestic and personal hygiene practices can help the transmission of disease-causing germs:

• Directly by the faecal-oral route, or by person to person or pet to person contact
• Indirectly by vectors coming into contact with people or their food, people breathing in airborne droplets of moisture which contain germs or eating contaminated food.

Community environmental health education: Educating the community in nurturing and caring for a health family is part of community development.

Pest control – Rubbish, food scraps, open drains, dirty tables and animal faeces are breeding places for flies. Controlling insects like flies cockroaches, mosquitoes, parasites, rodents by proper disposal of waste.

How are diseases spread?

If you poop or defecate in any open environment, flies feed and lay eggs in it.

If you do not wash hands with water & soap after going to the toilet, germs remain in your hands.

When flies land on food or if you touch food with unwashed hands, germs are carried over.

If you eat food with germs on, germs enter your body…And you get sick!

Diseases in native communities that are caused by germs and carried by flies are:

Bacterial diseases : Salmonellosis, Shigelosis , E.coli, Salmonella E.coli

Viral diseases: Hepatitis A

Diseases caused by parasites: Hookworm infection, Scabies infection, Pediculosis (head lice infection)

Some good practices are that can be developed are:

• Always put rubbish in the bin with lid that is on properly.
• Always cover food and store it properly so that pests cannot get to it.
• Always use the toilet
• Keep flies away from babies’ and young children’s ears, eyes and mouth
• Keep the ears, eyes and mouth as dry as possible
• When they are old enough, children should be taught to wipe their nose with a tissue or piece of cloth. Then teach them how to dispose dirty tissue in a rubbish bin.
• Cover all sores with a cloth or band-aid dressing. Dirty dressings should be put in the bin
• Seek treatment if you are sick.

Historical Significance

An Irish immigrant named Mary Mallon became the nation’s first known carrier of typhoid fever, a bacterial disease transmitted by poor sanitation. Between 1900 and 1907, she infected 22 people while working as a cook in private homes around New York City. As she changed employment, she continued to spread the disease until the health inspector investigated the case and concluded that Mary Mallon was the carrier.

The issue of Mary Mallon’s quarantine went to trial in 1909, and the judge sided with the Department of Health’s decision to isolate an individual citizen in order to protect the heath of the public. After three years of isolation, the health inspector released her on the condition that she would not work in any job preparing or serving. In 1915, however, she infected 25 people while employed as a cook at Sloan Hospital, resulting in two deaths. The Department of Health quarantined Mary Mallon for life.

After dying of pneumonia in 1938, an autopsy discovered live typhoid bacteria in her gallbladder.