In a world of MRSA and Superfungi, you have to start washing your hands properly

A heartbreaking article in the New York Times this weekend annoyed a lot of people. It describes in detail the progression of a fungal disease in hospitals that, like many infections, has gradually become resistant to the drugs used to treat it. But despite all our justified fears about superbugs, there is a simple precaution against infections that most of us do not take: washing our hands correctly.

In 2013, researchers at Michigan State University conducted a thankless study, albeit slightly scary. They observed how more than 3,500 residents of their university town used the sink of various toilets after exercising their activities.

About 10% of those surveyed chose not to wash their hands at all, which is simply not an acceptable way to end a day in the bathroom. But even the vast majority of people who tried to wash their hands managed to ruin the routine. Nearly a quarter of people washed their hands without soap, for example. And only 5% washed their hands for at least 15 seconds or more, which is actually less than the 20-second minimum of handwashing recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The 2013 study was not the first to highlight our horrific hand-washing prowess, and it's not the last. In 2018, a smaller study of almost 400 people, funded by the United States Department of Agriculture, found that 97% of respondents had failed to wash their hands properly (a very large third did not wash at all) when preparing a meal. This is particularly disheartening because foodborne germs Escherichia coli or Salmonella also become resistant to drugs.

Of course, simply washing your hands is not enough to stop the plague of bacteria. The fungal threat at the heart of New York Times history, called Candida auris, is a tough germ that is incredibly difficult to eradicate from hospital rooms, retirement homes and patients it colonizes. And little research has been done on whether proper hand washing can actually reduce the risk of C. auris spread during an epidemic.

Apart from this, many factors other than handwashing have a direct impact on the growth of drug-resistant infections. These factors include the excessive prescribing of antibiotics in people who do not need them; antibiotic floods in our livestock (practice that has only recently been reduced in the United States); and the overuse of fungicides on crops that have probably paved the way for more resistant fungi, including C. auris, to show oneself.

But hospitals and places like this are hot spots for drug-resistant infections that can be prevented or better controlled with good hand washing. In hospitals and even retirement homes where staff, patients and visitors become better handwash, for example, the rate of outbreaks of superbugs seems to be decreasing.

At present, these epidemics are still largely confined to suitable breeding areas such as hospitals and prisons, and the most common victims are usually people whose immune systems are already compromised. But it is not an abstract danger either. Each year, drug-resistant germs infect about 2 million Americans and kill more than 20,000 directly. And according to at least one estimate from the United Kingdom, they could very well make more victims in the world than cancer by 2050 if no major advance is envisaged (and these chances are not encouraging).

In the face of this impending disaster, the least we can do is wash our hands a little better. So, here's how to do it.

According to the CDC, you should wash with soap and running water (lukewarm or cold, it does not really matter) for 20 seconds, lather vigorously between each corner and nook. Then rinse them thoroughly before drying them completely with a towel or air dryer (the air dryers, it must be said, can actually transmit some of the germs left on our hands). Hands should be washed before, during and after food preparation (including your pet's meals! They often contain meat, which could be contaminated); before eating; and after every case of handling bodily fluids (yours or others) and waste.

Alcohol-based hand sanitizers can be pinched, but they do not protect you against as many germs as soap and water and are not as effective if your hands are visibly dirty or fat. And do not worry farther, but some bacteria are also suspected of learning to defend against alcohol-based products.