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Abstract
The objective of this study was to evaluate the efficacy of dirt removal (bacteria and organic matter) of several hand-cleaning procedures. The results from the hand hygiene experiment indicated that washing hands with warm water and soap for 20 s is the most effective method investigated when hands are either dirty or greasy. Even if not proper washing, rinsing under running water for 5 s is a cleaning procedure that may significantly reduce the probability of cross-contamination, as it removes 90% of the hands’ dirt. Although less effective than water and soap, the usage of antibacterial wipes was significantly more effective than wet wipes, indicating that they are a better choice when water and soap are not available. The results of this study enable us to inform consumers about the effectiveness of hand-cleaning procedures applied in their homes when cooking. Moreover, it can make consumers understand why, during the COVID-19 pandemic, authorities recommended washing hands as a preventive measure of infection and using an anti-bacterial hand gel or wiping hands with an antimicrobial wipe if water and soap are not available.
Highlights
The World Health Organisation [1] estimates that 600 million people—nearly 1 in 10 people in the world—get sick after eating contaminated food, and 420,000 die each year.In 2019, The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) reported 5175 foodborne outbreaks that affected 53,383 people; inadequate consumer hygiene practices in the household being the most commonly reported source (41.3%) [2]
As we wanted to measure the efficacy of different hand-cleaning procedures, we had a different approach: to quantify the dirt that stayed on hands after applying different cleaning procedures and to measure after removing from hands into a determined quantity of sterile water
We assumed that most of the epithelial cells were removed during cleaning hands before the planned contamination experiment, so their contribution to the Relative Light Units (RLU) value obtained for total or remaining dirt is negligible
Summary
In 2019, The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) reported 5175 foodborne outbreaks that affected 53,383 people; inadequate consumer hygiene practices in the household being the most commonly reported source (41.3%) [2]. Proper hand hygiene has been acknowledged as one of the most simple and adequate measures to prevent or reduce the infection rate with foodborne pathogens and the number of cases of foodborne illnesses, which usually occur through inefficient hand hygiene, cross-contamination, and transmission of certain bacteria and viruses [3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10]. Studies conducted on consumers during cooking have shown a low rate of compliance to hand hygiene practices, and even when performed, proper hand washing was observed in a small percentage [15,16,17,18]. According to the authorities responsible for public health, 4.0/)
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