Guro Public Health Center

What is the 1830
Handwashing movement?

It is a health campaign encouraging to washing hands each day 8 times, for 30 seconds each.
It is a movement to not only understand the importance of washing hands but also to build a life habit that can be put into practice.

Handwashing and diseases

• Handwashing and prevention of food poisoning
  • Washing hands thoroughly is the first step in preventing diseases.
  • Washing hands is easy and simple, but is also the most effective way to prevent diseases.
  • 70% of all diseases can be prevented just by thorough handwashing.
  • As cooking with hands with germs will affect all of the people who eat the food, damage will be done not only to oneself but also to others if hands are not washed properly.
• Hands and germs
  • The human body part that comes in contact with harmful germs the most is the hands.
  • 60,000 germs live on one hand alone, and among them, wandering invasive germs from the outside coexist with native germs that defend against them.
  • The action of washing hands is to wash off the wandering germs.
  • An average of around 6,600 staphylococci live on the hands of typical Korean housewives.
  • Staphylococci are germs that can generate food poisoning if they proliferate due to the effects of the surrounding environment such as temperature.
• Hands and contagion of diseases
  • Viruses that cause colds survive for about 2 hours in the air, but they can survive for about 70 hours on human hands.
  • The cold virus survives in the tears and nasal discharge of a sick person and is transferred to other people via the patient’s hands.
• Types of diseases transmitted by hands
  • Skin diseases (chickenpox, eczema, itching)
  • Eye diseases (trachoma, acute hemorrhagic conjunctivitis)
  • Parasitic diseases (roundworms, threadworms, whipworms, hookworms, etc.)
  • Digestive diseases (shigellosis, food poisoning, cholera, typhoid, etc.)

When should we wash our hands?

• Whenever we need to wash our hands before doing something
  • Before cooking food
  • Before eating food
  • Before wearing contact lenses
• Whenever we have to wash hands after doing something
  • After touching raw food ingredients
  • After using a dish towel
  • After going out
  • After using a bathroom
  • After a person with a cold blows their nose or sneezes
  • After touching an item used by several people

Proper handwashing method

Handwashing methods and efficiency

Duration and efficiency of handwashing

How to practice 1830 Handwashing

• Singing the happy birthday song twice will take 30 seconds.
• If we teach children the order of handwashing along with a song, they can pick up the handwashing habit by taking interest.
• It is more effective if warm water and a soap are used.
• Make sure to wash more thoroughly with special attention to the areas between fingers and fingernails that are not easily washed well.

Order of handwashing

1. Soak your hands and wrists in warm running water and apply soap sufficiently.
2. Rub your palms and wash off all corners.
3. Use your right palm to wash from the back of your left hand to the wrist.
4. Use your left palm to wash from the back of your right hand to the wrist.
5. Thoroughly rub and wash the back of your left hand and between the left-hand fingers with the right-hand fingers.
6. Thoroughly rub and wash the back of your right hand and between the right-hand fingers with the left-hand fingers.
7. Put the tips of your right-hand fingers together and cover them with the left palm to rub side by side and wash the fingertips and under the fingernails.
8. Put the tips of your left-hand fingers together and cover them with the right palm to rub side by side and wash the fingertips and under the fingernails.
9. Completely rinse off the soap and dry your hands using a paper towel, air dryer, etc.