Sing Happy Birthday as you wash to stop infection
EVERYONE should wash their hands for the length of time it takes to sing Happy Birthday twice, a leading health expert has advised.
Dr Gina Radford warned that the majority of Britons do not wash their hands for long enough and many do not use soap.
Failure to carry out ‘basic hygiene’ is causing people to pick up common infections and contributing to the growing problem of antibiotic resistance, she said.
But Dr Radford, the Westminster government’s deputy chief medical officer, complained that many people did not bother to wash their hands properly after going to the toilet or before eating.
She said: ‘Some of the prevention [techniques] are really simple things. You should wash your hands with soap and water for the length of twice through Happy Birthday or one verse of God Save the Queen.’
Singing either should take 30 to 5 seconds, depending on your singing speed.
Her comments follow those of her boss, chief medical officer Professor Dame Sally Davies, who has been nicknamed the Government’s ‘nanny-in-chief’ for her strict instructions about personal health.
This year she told people not to drink alcohol or tea and to get off the bus a stop early. Two weeks ago she ordered Britons to stop ‘grazing’ from the fridge.
Dr Radford, speaking on Wednesday at an International Longevity Centre debate in London on the problem of antibiotic resistance, said it could be combated if everyone tried to avoid picking up infections.
Health chiefs say overprescribing of antibiotics has caused bacteria to evolve into ‘superbugs’ immune to treatment.
Experts fear it means infections could kill more people than cancer within a few decades.
Dr Radford also warned doctors not to prescribe antibiotics ‘inappropriately’.
Over the past century, the drugs have cut the proportion of deaths caused by infection from 0 per cent of all deaths to 7 per cent.
But once bacteria evolve to become resistant, antibiotics become useless and even a relatively minor graze could lead to a potentially fatal infection.