Hand washing is the simplest and most effective way to make sure you stay infection-free from those germs that your vaccinations do not protect you from. Germs are viruses, bacteria and parasites that can infect you and make you sick. There are more than 212 different kinds of known infectious illnesses and diseases that are caused by harmful germs.

Some of these germs are spread by insect bites, through the air, or through infected food or water, but most enter the body when they are on your hands. You get infected when your germy hands come into contact with your eyes, nose and mouth, including after you've touched food that you then eat.

A virus is smaller than a cell and made up of a piece of either DNA or RNA. Viruses can only reproduce by infecting a host (such as a person), invading a cell and recoding the cell's genetic information to make more viruses. When the new viruses leave the cell, they destroy it. Over 5,000 different viruses have been discovered and described, and viruses are constantly mutating, which results in new viruses. (This is why you need to get the flu shot every year; each one is for a different virus.) Viruses include germs such as the common cold, H1N1 "swine" flu, HIV and chicken pox.

A bacterium is a single-cell organism without a nucleus. Bacteria reproduce by growing and dividing. The names of different bacteria usually reflect their shape: rod (bacilli), sphere (cocci) or spiral (spirilla). While most bacteria are actually benign or even beneficial, a small percentage can make you very sick with conditions such as strep throat, staph infections and tuberculosis.

A parasite can be a single-cell or multiple-cell organism. It infects a host to fulfill its nutritional needs. Parasites can further be divided into the categories of fungi, protozoa and helminths. Parasites cause conditions like athlete's foot (fungi), malaria (protozoa), and tapeworm (helminth) infections.

Thoroughly grossed out yet? The good news is that you can protect yourself from most germs by making sure your vaccinations are up-to-date and by frequent, effective hand washing.

As if you needed more, here are additional reasons why you should wash your hands:

• Nearly 22 million school days are lost due to the common cold alone. A study of Detroit schoolchildren showed that washing hands at least four times a day can reduce time off for respiratory illness by 24 percent and time lost to stomach illnesses by more than 50 percent.¹
• Dog and cat saliva can contain any of more than 100 different germs that can make you sick.² It's also important to wash your hands after handling reptiles, which can carry salmonella.
• What do hepatitis A, enterovirus (one of the viruses that cause viral meningitis) and shigellosis (the cause of dysentery) all have in common? They are often spread through fecal-oral transmission, which is why it's so important to wash your hands after using the bathroom.
• In a 2007 Harris Interactive survey, the largest gap between male and female hand-washing patterns was observed at the Atlanta Braves baseball game, where 95 percent of women were observed washing their hands compared to 57 percent of males.
• At work, phones harbor more germs than any surface - even more than the toilet seats. Other areas with lots of workplace germs include desktops, keyboards and elevator buttons.³
• Those who are preparing food should consider the germs in their culinary creations, especially raw meat. Not washing your hands after dealing with raw chicken, for example, means you can spread salmonella to your family.
• It's not all about you. Think of how many people you come across with compromised immune systems, such as the sick or elderly. An infection for them can be deadly.

Notes

  ¹ Reuters New Media, 1996.
  ² American Society for Microbiology Clean Hands
       Campaign, Washup.org
  ³ University of Arizona

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