page_title: Hand washing
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Hand washing / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Electronic sign inside a metro station in Washington, DC during the coronavirus pandemic.
context_page_description: Hand washing, also known as hand hygiene, is the act of cleaning one's hands with soap and water to remove viruses/ bacteria/germs/ microorganisms, dirt, grease, or other harmful and unwanted substances stuck to the hands. Drying of the washed hands is part of the process as wet and moist hands are more easily recontaminated.
  The World Health Organization recommends washing hands for at least 20 seconds before/after the following:
  Before and after caring for any sick person
  Before, during, and after preparing food
  Before eating
  After using the toilet,
  After helping someone who just used the toilet
  After blowing one's nose, or coughing or sneezing
  After touching an animal, animal feed or animal waste
  After touching garbage
  However, if soap and water are not available, hand sanitizer that is at least 60% alcohol in water can be used instead, unless hands are visibly excessively dirty or greasy. When both hand washing and using hand sanitizer are not available, hands can be cleaned with ash and clean water, although the benefits and harms are uncertain for reducing the spread of viral or bacterial infections.
context_section_description: The importance of hand washing for human health – particularly for people in vulnerable circumstances like mothers who had just given birth or wounded soldiers in hospitals – was first recognized in the mid 19th century by two pioneers of hand hygiene: the Hungarian physician Ignaz Semmelweis who worked in Vienna, Austria and Florence Nightingale, the English "founder of modern nursing". At that time most people still believed that infections were caused by foul odors called miasmas.
  In the 1980s, foodborne outbreaks and healthcare-associated infections led the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to more actively promote hand hygiene as an important way to prevent the spread of infection. The outbreak of swine flu in 2009 and the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 led to increased awareness in many countries of the importance of washing hands with soap to protect oneself from such infectious diseases. For example, posters with "correct hand washing techniques" were hung up next to hand washing sinks in public toilets and in the toilets of office buildings and airports in Germany.
caption: Electronic sign inside a Washington Metro station during the COVID-19 pandemic
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