Wash your hands to keep diseases at bay

Sri Lanka joined the first-ever Global Hand-Washing Day, to raise awareness about taking care of basic hygiene. The Ministry of Healthcare and Nutrition, Ministry of Education and the Unilever Group joined to conduct a "clean hands" project islandwide to educate children about the advantages of basic hygienic practices, especially washing hands regularly. The UN General Assembly designated 2008 the International Year of Sanitation and the Global Handwashing Day is expected to reinforce the call for improved hygiene practices.

Handwashing with soap is the most effective and inexpensive way to prevent diarrhoeal and acute respiratory infections, which take the lives of millions of children in developing countries every year. Together, they are responsible for the majority of all child deaths. Yet, despite its lifesaving potential, handwashing with soap is seldom practised and difficult to promote.

The challenge is to transform handwashing with soap from an abstract good idea into an automatic behaviour performed in homes, schools, and communities worldwide. Turning handwashing with soap before eating and after using the toilet into an ingrained habit could save more lives than any single vaccine or medical intervention, cutting deaths from diarrhoea by almost half and deaths from acute respiratory infections by one-quarter. A vast change in handwashing behaviour is critical to meeting the Millennium Development Goal of reducing deaths among children under the age of five by two-thirds by 2015.

Handwashing is a simple habit, something most people do without thinking.

Yet handwashing, when done properly, is one of the best ways to avoid getting sick. This simple habit requires only soap and warm water or an alcohol-based hand sanitizer - a cleanser that doesn't require water. Do you know the benefits of good hand hygiene and when and how to wash your hands properly?

Health benefits

Despite the proven health benefits of handwashing, many people don't practise this habit as often as they should - even after using the toilet.

Throughout the day you accumulate germs on your hands from a variety of sources, such as direct contact with people, contaminated surfaces, foods, even animals and animal waste. If you don't wash your hands frequently enough, you can infect yourself with these germs by touching your eyes, nose or mouth. And you can spread these germs to others by touching them or by touching surfaces that they also touch, such as doorknobs.

Infectious diseases that are commonly spread through hand-to-hand contact include the common cold, flu and several gastrointestinal disorders, such as infectious diarrhoea. While most people will get over a cold, the flu can be much more serious. Some people with the flu, particularly older adults and people with chronic medical problems, can develop pneumonia. The combination of the flu and pneumonia, in fact, is the eighth-leading cause of death among Americans.

Inadequate hand hygiene also contributes to food-related illnesses, such as salmonella and E. coli infection. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), as many as 76 million Americans get a food-borne illness each year. Of these, about 5,000 die as a result of their illness. Others experience the annoying signs and symptoms of nausea, vomiting and diarrhoea.

Proper techniques

Good hand-washing techniques include washing your hands with soap and water or using an alcohol-based hand sanitizer. Antimicrobial wipes or towelettes are just as effective as soap and water in cleaning your hands but aren't as good as alcohol-based sanitizers.

Antibacterial soaps have become increasingly popular in recent years.

However, these soaps are no more effective at killing germs than is regular soap. Using antibacterial soaps may lead to the development of bacteria that are resistant to the products' antimicrobial agents - making it even harder to kill these germs in the future. In general, regular soap is fine. The combination of scrubbing your hands with soap - antibacterial or not - and rinsing them with water loosens and removes bacteria from your hands.

* Proper handwashing with soap and water* Follow these instructions for washing with soap and water:

* Wet your hands with warm, running water and apply liquid soap or use clean bar soap. Lather well.

* Rub your hands vigorously together for at least 15 to 20 seconds.

* Scrub all surfaces, including the backs of your hands, wrists, between your fingers and under your fingernails.

* Rinse well.

* Dry your hands with a clean or disposable towel.

* Use a towel to turn off the faucet.

* When should you wash your hands?*

Although it's impossible to keep your bare hands germ-free, there are times when it's critical to wash your hands to limit the transfer of bacteria, viruses and other microbes.

Always wash your hands:

After using the toilet

After changing a diaper - wash the diaper-wearer's hands, too.

After touching animals or animal waste.

Before and after preparing food, especially before and immediately after handling raw meat, poultry or fish Before eating.

After blowing your nose.

After coughing or sneezing into your hands.

Before and after treating wounds or cuts

Before and after touching a sick or injured person.

After handling garbage.

Before inserting or removing contact lenses.

When using public restrooms, such as those in airports, train stations, bus stations and restaurants.

Kids and clean hands

You can help your children avoid getting sick by insisting that they wash their hands properly and frequently. To get kids into the habit, teach by example. Wash your hands with your children and supervise their hand washing. Place hand-washing reminders at children's eye level, such as a chart by the bathroom sink for children to mark every time they wash their hands. Make sure the sink is low enough for children to use, or that it has a stool underneath so that children can reach it. Tell your children to wash their hands for as long as it takes them to sing their ABCs, "Row, Row, Row Your Boat" or the "Happy Birthday" song. This works especially well with younger children, who may rush when washing their hands.

Older children and adolescents also can use alcohol-based hand sanitizers.

Younger children can use them, too - with an adult's help. Just make sure the sanitizer has completely dried before your child touches anything. This will avoid ingestion of alcohol from hand-to-mouth contact. Store the container safely away after use. Hand washing is especially important for children who attend child care. Children younger than 3 years in child care are at greater risk of respiratory and gastrointestinal diseases, which can easily spread to family members and others in the community.

To protect your child's health, be sure your child care provider promotes sound hygiene, including frequent handwashing or use of alcohol-based hand sanitizers. Ask whether the children are required to wash their hands several times a day - not just before meals. Note, too, whether diapering areas are cleaned after each use and whether eating and diapering areas are well separated.

Simple way

Handwashing doesn't take much time or effort, but it offers great rewards in terms of preventing illness. Adopting this simple habit can play a major role in protecting your health.

How to defeat your anger!

Dr. Chamari WEERARATNE

MBBS, MD Specialist Physician and Senior Lecturer, Faculty of Medicine, University of Colombo.

Have you ever been angry? If the answer to this question is "yes" we need to discuss a little further about your anger. How often do you get angry? Perhaps you get angry almost all the time, very often or often. You are lucky if you feel angry only occasionally or rarely.

How angry do you get when you are angry? On some occasions your anger could have been unbearable? You may have felt as if you were going to burst with anger? On other occasions you may have been able to bear your anger without great difficulty. However you may still have felt very angry. On yet other occasions you may not have felt angry but only annoyed. Whatever your experiences may have been related to anger and its intensity, you may agree that anger is a very nasty and distressing state of mind. You cannot be happy when you are angry. You cannot concentrate when you are angry. So undoubtedly anger causes a great deal of misery and may be your worst enemy at times. If so anger needs to be dealt with effectively. If you are to defeat anger you need to study this formidable enemy very carefully indeed.

What makes or made you angry? You may feel or may have felt angry for different reasons at different times. Think whether these are or were the reasons for your anger.

1. Somebody has done, is doing, or is going to do something that you do not like, do not want or is harmful to you or the people you like and love.

2. Somebody is helping, has helped or is friendly with people you do not like.

3. "Problems" in your surroundings. You may feel angry when it is raining or not raining. You may feel angry when the weather is too warm or cold. You may get angry when there is a sudden electricity failure or when the water supply is discontinued suddenly. Sometimes you may be angry at what ever is happening or not happening around you!

Consequences of your anger Have you ever thought about the consequences and effects of your anger? The first victim of your anger is your self. Why is that? Anger is like a fire in your mind. It hurts. It burns. It destroys. It makes you miserable and stressed. Anger destroys your good looks. Anger destroys and ruins your friendships and relationships. Anger causes you to act without thinking and do unlawful things at times. It can cause you great embarrassment at times. Frequent anger can lead to diseases related to long term stress such as high blood pressure, heart disease, diabetes and depression. Frequent anger can lead to bad habits such as alcoholism, smoking and illicit drug use. Anger can also harm others at times, mentally as well as physically. Other people may be hurt, frightened and disappointed by your anger. You may do them physical harm at times. You may think that frightening and dominating others is rewarding. You may believe that anger is a powerful tool of getting your way in things. However you only realize later that you have become a looser when you have lost respect, care, affection and love of your associates and loved ones through your anger.

On the other hand, sometimes your anger can make other people happy and satisfied. So is not this a good thing you may ask? Depends! If they wanted to make you loose your temper, loose yourself control and wanted you to suffer because of your anger I doubt whether you consider it as a good thing! People may try to provoke you on purpose with an ulterior motive of bringing you down and destroying your image. You are playing into their hands by becoming angry. If anger is so destructive why on earth do you give into anger? It is surely not because you like to be unhappy, stressful and live in misery. Perhaps you may not know how to deal with it properly. If this is the case try this method out the next time you are angry.

1. Take a broader view of your anger. Divide anger into components.

A. What is the Object (person, thing or reason) of your anger; Reflect that the world is not perfect and will never be perfect. You are very unlikely to be able to change and control the whole external world the way you want. This applies to the object that has made you angry as well, who is part and parcel of this imperfect world. Therefore realize that it is useless getting angry at this object.

B. What does anger do to your mind? Your mind is distressed, confused and unclear. In other words you are going to loose your power over your mind if you let this anger continue any longer.

C. What does your anger do to your body? You feel your heart beating fast. Your breathing pattern has changed. Your body has become tense. Some times you may feel as if you were going to suffer a heart attack or stroke or collapse to the ground because of uncontrollable anger. You feel very uncomfortable and helpless. You are about to loose your control over your body.

1. Tell yourself that you do not want to suffer and cause harm to your mind and body this way.

2. Tell yourself that you will be able to prevent this misery if you do not entertain anger any longer.

3. Tell yourself to let go of anger immediately and completely.

When you step aside like this and analyze your anger and look at yourself objectively in this manner you weaken your anger until it has completely faded away. At the same time your mind becomes clearer and more focused. You find that you can identify your choices in the situation better and act more rationally. You save yourself and others from unnecessary suffering and stress. You avoid taking wrong decisions that may be very difficult to reverse. You save yourself and others from diseases related to chronic stress such as hypertension, heart disease, diabetes and mental illnesses.

So the next time you are angry

1. Recognize that you are angry.

2. Realize that you, and only you have opened the door of your mind to this enemy called anger and let it take charge of your mind.

3. Realize that you are now unhappy, stressed and hurt by your anger.

4. Realize that the only person on earth that can defend you from your anger, protect you from your anger and control and get rid of your anger is only you and nobody else.

5. The power of defeating anger is in your hands. It is so easy. You do not need to change any thing or any body around you. The only person you need to change to win over anger and to be happy is YOU and you only! Why wait and suffer then? Change yourself until you defeat anger.

You and your baby

Odyssey of sperm

By Dr. Vijith VIDYAVIBUSHANA

Consultant Gynaecologist, Castle Street Hospital for Women

Sperm is the male counterpart which contains all the genetic material required for the beginning of a new life. Therefore the sperm contains half of the genetic material that we inherit from our parents. Sperms are special cells needed for reproduction and produced by the testicles which are situated inside the scrotum. Unlike the egg, the early sperm cells start their division at the time of puberty onwards. It takes about 70-80 days for the process of formation of mature sperms from its primitive cells. The initial sperms produced cannot swim as they cannot move forward.

This property of moving forward or maturity is achieved when these sperms reach the lower part of the male reproductive system. One has to have more than 20 million sperms per ml for normal fertility to occur. All human beings have few millions of abnormal sperms despite having normal fertility.

The temperature of the scrotum has to be less than the body temperature for optimum sperm production. Some viral infections like mumps, radiation, toxins etc may affect the quality and the quantity of sperms.

How can I check if my sperms are of good quality?

This should only be done if you or your wife has a problem in getting conceived(subfertility). The only way to check this is by doing a test called seminal fluid analysis. This test has to be done following three days abstinence of sex. The specimen has to be produced at the site of the place of examination as examination has to be done as soon as possible. Delay between the time of production and time of examination can give a false result. A bottle with a wide neck should be used as a bottle with a narrow neck makes collection difficult. Improper collection can lead to a false positive result.