I should start by saying that an important part of my job is encouraging hospital staff to clean their hands. The World Health Organization has a global patient-safety campaign reminding us that Clean Hands SAVE LIVES, and in-hospital hand hygiene is universally recognized as one of the most important ways of reducing health care-associated infection.
Most of you don’t live in a hospital, though. So what about at home? Little bottles of hand gel are appearing in more and more places every day. Is this a good idea or just part of a societal “germ panic”?
There are three groups of products to consider: alcohol-based hand sanitizers, antibacterial soaps, and other antibacterial products.
Hand Sanitizers
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