Covid-19 pandemic improves Irish hand hygiene habits, research reveals

Initial Hygiene, Ireland’s leading expert in commercial hygiene, is calling on Irish businesses and organisations to help their employees, customers and visitors to maintain good hand hygiene practices, and to ensure that these good habits are being implemented in the workplace ahead of Global Handwashing Day, on Saturday 15th October.

Research on hand hygiene habits carried out by Initial Hygiene before, during and after the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic revealed that 85% of respondents made efforts to improve their hand hygiene habits during this period, with 91% of respondents saying they would continue to maintain these improved hand hygiene standards into the future. 

The research also revealed that female respondents displayed better hand hygiene habits than men in their responses. 81% of female respondents reported washing their hands before every meal, as opposed to 75% of male respondents. 72% of females also reported washing their hands more than six times a day, as opposed to 58% of males.

Richard Faulkner, Advanced Technical Field Consultant with Initial Hygiene, said: “Hand hygiene practices are some of the most important ways that we can help to ensure a hygienic and safe workspace for everyone. To coincide with Global Handwashing Day, Initial Hygiene is asking people to ensure they are practicing good hand hygiene habits.”

Advice on handwashing, which is aligned with advice from the World Health Organisation, includes:

• Cleaning your hands regularly
• Always using soap and warm water when washing your hands
• Use alcohol-based hand rub if you don’t have immediate access to soap and water
• Always spend a minimum of 20 second washing your hands, to ensure they’re cleaned thoroughly
• Wash thoroughly, ensuring that every part of the hand is included 
• Dry your hands thoroughly after washing them, ideally with a hand dryer or single-use paper hand towel.

Global Handwashing Day is an annual global advocacy day which was founded by the Global Handwashing Partnership and is dedicated to advocating for handwashing with soap as an easy, effective, and affordable way to help prevent the spread of diseases and save lives. The 2022 Global Handwashing Day theme is ‘Unite for universal hand hygiene.’