One of the best ways to prevent infectious diseases is so simple that many people don’t appreciate its benefits. It’s hand washing.
Washing your hands is effective and takes very little time.
Keeping the environment germ-free
Part of taking care of your health depends on taking care of your environment. It’s important to take care of the places where you spend your time (home, work, car).
CLEANING IS DIFFERENT FROM DISINFECTING
Remember that there is a difference between cleaning and disinfecting. CLEANING is removing dirt. DISINFECTING is killing germs.
To clean the environment, use detergents (soaps). Some detergents can be effective at killing some germs, but not all.
To disinfect the environment, use chlorine-based products. A very effective way of killing germs is to use 10% bleach as a disinfectant.
Sterilization is another method of killing germs. Washing machines and dishwashers have heaters so that the water coming out of them is hotter than tap water. Many germs cannot survive the high temperature.
Once a week:
Use damp cloths with the solution to disinfect items such as fridge door handles, telephone handsets and their buttons, remote controls, video game controls, computer keyboards…
Soak sponges in bleach in the sink overnight to disinfect both the sponge and the sink (and drains).
