Hygiene key to pandemic control - experts

Thursday September 24th, 2009

Higher priority should be given to hand-washing, mask-wearing and the isolation of potentially infected patients when making national pandemic plans, researchers have urged.

Professor Tom Jefferson, of the Cochrane Acute Respiratory Infections Group, in Rome, who led the study, has called for nationwide hand-washing programmes and personal hygiene teaching in schools.

Where there is a high risk of transmission, barrier measures such as gloves, gowns, and masks with filtration apparatus and isolation of likely cases should also be implemented, he said.

Additionally, said Prof Jefferson, there should be more investment into which physical interventions are the most effective, how they should be introduced and flexible and cost-effective means of minimising the impact of acute respiratory infections.

The study, published on-line by the British Medical Journal, is a follow-up to his 2007 research, which demonstrated the effectiveness of hand-washing and physical barriers to prevent the spread of respiratory viruses, because pandemic interventions still rely on vaccines and antiviral drugs.

The team analysed the results of 59 published studies on the effectiveness of physical measures to interrupt or reduce the spread of respiratory viruses such as influenza and SARs.

The results showed that:

• regular hand-washing (more than 10 times a day) and wearing masks, gloves and gowns were effective individually against all forms of acute infectious respiratory disease, and were even more effective when combined (only three patients would need to be treated in this way to prevent one case of respiratory disease).
• The highest quality trials suggested that spread of respiratory viruses could best be prevented by hygienic measures in younger children and within households.
• Many low cost measures can be highly effective at reducing transmission of epidemic respiratory viruses, especially when they are part of a structured programme including education, and when they are delivered together.

Global measures, such as screening at entry ports were not properly evaluated, and there was limited evidence that social distancing was effective, concluded Prof Jefferson.

Tags: Europe | Flu & Viruses | MRSA & Hygiene

Printer friendly page