HYGIENE PROTECTS YOU AGAINST DISEASES

Good hygiene is the first step towards good health, in the health centre, the house and for people. In hard working or living situations it is important to fit to simple hygiene principles and to remind the patient about it.

What is good hygiene? to have good hygiene means to keep yourself, your house, your garden, your village, and your work environment clean to prevent infection. An infection is a desease caused by bacteria or virus, which can be extremely harmful to people, especially the weak one: children, pregnant women, sick persons and elders.

Why prevention is so important ?

• Not all infectious diseases can be traated and some of them are fatal
• Prevention is less expensive than treatment.

What is an infectious disease?
Infectious diseases are the result of an attack of the body by a bacterium, a virus, a superior parasite or a fungus. The symptoms of an infeciton depend on the balance between of an infection depend on the balanace between the demaga done by the germ and the immune defences of the body and the localization of the infection.

Glossary
Virus : Very small and simple orgnisms which cannot live without the help of the body the infected. The live and reproduce themselves within the body cells and meanwhile they can be infecting them. Them are not necessarily harmful.
Bacteria : Bigger then a virus but still not a complete cell. Bacteria can live without the help of an external organism, on the skin, in the digestive tract or the vagina. They are not necessarily harmful for people. High temperature kills bacteria.
Germ : Small animal, peresnt in the air but only visible with the help of a microscope. It can transmit infection to the human body.
Superior Parasites : Organisms with one (Plasmodium Falciparum) or many cells (worms). They cannot live without the help of a host.
Fungus : Kind of vegetal organism that needs exchange of food with another body. Funguses only generate pain and infaction when body's immunity is destroyed.

Health Education
As a health worker you also have to give health educaion to your patients. These are some of the advices that you can give them:

Personal Hygiene

• Wash your body with soap every day
• Keep your fingernalis short and clean
• Brush your teeth twice a day
• Wear shoes when you are outside
• Wash your hands with soap before and after cooking, eating, drinking, using latrines, etc.
• Wash small wounds with boiled water, protect them with a clean and dry cloth, and go to the pustus as soon as possible.

Washing

• Wash your clothes, mats and blankets regularly.
• Hang or spread blankets in the sun after washing.

In the house

• Use the latrines; do not pass stool or urine on the ground or in the river.
• Teach your children to use latrines early
• Do not let anmals come into the house
• Do not spit on the floor
• Clean the house often (floors, walls, furniture).

Cleanliness in eating and drinking

• Boil the water during 10 minutes before drinking.
• Keep boiled water inside clean and covered containers
• Do not let filies and other insects land or crawl on food
• Protect food by keeping it covered.
• Before eating fruits or vegetables, wash it with clean water.
• Only eat meat that is well cooked. Do not eat food that it still or smells bad. It may be poisonous. If it is necessary, re-cooked again the food or makes it warm before eating it.

Sanitation

• Do not let the children drink water directly from the tap or the well
• Put the garbage into a deep hole far away form the houses
• Burn all the garbage that can be burnt
• Build latrines far away from the houses, from the river and from where the people bathe or get drinking water.
• Avoid stagnant water

Sources : WHO, Healt Massenger.