Hygiene, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), refers to conditions and practices that help to maintain health and prevent the spread of diseases. Hygiene activities can be grouped into the following:
Personal Hygiene: Personal hygiene includes practices which guides on how you care for your body. This practice includes bathing, washing your hands, brushing your teeth, laundry of clothes, underwears, towels, trimming of nails, and more. We come into contact with millions of germs and viruses, and they can linger on one’s body, and in some cases, they may make an individual sick.
Personal hygiene practices can help you and the people around you prevent illnesses. They can also help you feel good about your appearance, thereby enhancing high self-esteem. Personal hygiene also includes oral care, which facilitates appetite and reduces the chances of the spread of bacteria that can lead to excoriation of the oral cavity.
Home and Everyday Hygiene: Hygiene practices that prevent or minimize the spread of microorganisms capable of causing disease in the home and other everyday settings such as social settings, public transport, the workplace, public places, etc.
The surfaces most often responsible for the spread of harmful microbes in most homes are because of hand contact with these surfaces, food surfaces which is thus where hygiene practices are most important. Hygienic cleaning of hands is particularly important after handling food, using the toilet, coughing, sneezing, handling pets, disposing of waste and caring for those who are sick. Hygienic cleaning of food contact surfaces is vital after preparing raw foods such as meat and poultry, or before preparing ready to eat foods such as sandwiches and snacks.
Hygienic cleaning of cleaning clothes and other cleaning utensils is important after they have been used to clean a contaminated surface.
Food Hygiene: Food Hygiene, otherwise known as Food Safety, can be defined as the process of handling, preparing and storing food or drink in a way that best reduces the risk of becoming sick from food-borne disease. The principles of food safety aim to prevent food from becoming contaminated and causing food poisoning. Food hygiene and safety prevent germs from multiplying in foods and reaching dangerous levels. All equipment should be properly cleaned and sanitized before starting any food preparation.
This is especially important for equipment that comes into direct contact with food. This includes cutting boards, knives, countertops, mixers, blenders etc. These areas are known to harbor dangerous bacteria that when they get into food can lead to food poisoning and diarrhea which cause severe dehydration, which if left untreated can cause fatal effect in the body.
Respiratory Hygiene: Correct respiratory and hand hygiene when coughing and sneezing reduces the spread of pathogens, particularly during the cold and flu season. Materials such as tissues are needed during coughs and sneezes to prevent the spread of droplets and such tissues should be discarded afterwards with the hands sanitized or washed.
The term “cleanliness” should not be used in place of hygiene. Cleaning in many cases is removing dirt, waste or unwanted things from the surface of objects using detergents and necessary equipment. Hygiene practices focus on the prevention of disease through the use of cleaning as one of several inputs. For example, a janitor cleans the floor of a health center using detergent, mop and broom. They might also use chlorine solution to disinfect the floor.
The cleaning process in this example is the removal of visible dirt, while the use of chlorine solution removes the invisible microorganisms. Hygienic practice encompasses both cleaning to ensure removal of physically observable matter and the use of chlorine for the removal of microorganisms. Hygiene cannot be underestimated in any form because of its vital role.
