Did you
know that a sneeze shoots out from the nose at up to 100 miles per hour? With
each sneeze, 40,000 droplets of germs travel up to six feet through the air. Plus,
the droplets of sneeze seen to the eye only make up about 4% of the total
volume expelled…pretty grim no?
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| The NHS campaign poster |
With germs spreading
through sneezes, coughs and surfaces like door handles that we all touch
regularly, why aren’t we ill all the time? Well, our immune systems can build up
resistance after being exposed to a bacteria/virus, so that upon a second exposure, antibodies
are produced to fight the germ quickly, stopping us getting the same illness
again. However, in the case of the common cold, as there are more than 200
types of virus which can cause a cold we would need to be exposed to all of
them to become ‘immune’, which is why adults get 2-4 colds on average per year.
Nowadays we have all sorts
of ways to stop the spread of these germs. Many of us carry around a little alcohol
hand gel in our bags to keep our hands germ free. Interestingly, people of the Muslim
faith cannot use alcohol hand gel – hence in hospitals there are soap
dispensers next to the alcohol gel dispensers. Many of us also carry around a
pack of tissues – sneezing into a tissue stops a lot of the horrible droplets
spreading to other people, as the NHS tries to inform us all of with its ‘catch
it , bin it, kill it’ campaign.
Despite all these nifty new ideas to improve hygiene, we all
still sneeze, cough and spread germs around every day. Luckily for us, the
human race has good enough immunity due to strategies such as vaccinations, to
boost our immunity and stop the outbreak of many diseases which would otherwise
be out of control. However, there is still the potential for epidemics – a current
concern is that of a measles outbreak. Between January and
April 2011 there were over seven thousand cases of measles in France, extremely
higher than the usual numbers. There is concern that this epidemic will spread
from France
other countries, as measles is a highly infectious and potentially dangerous illness
which spreads very easily. There has since been increased pressure on people to
be fully immunized, particularly if traveling abroad.
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| Now that's just taking it too far... |
But it is by no means all doom
and gloom. With increasing research into infection control, the knowledge of
how diseases spread and the use of vaccines to stop them, we have everything in
place to try to prevent and end outbreaks of diseases. Government campaigns such as catch it, bin it, kill it are spreading the knowledge of good hygiene to try to reduce the number of sick days people take with the flu. We all know the importance of hand washing, using tissues, and we are even now told to sneeze into our elbows not our hands to cut down the amount of germs being spread. So not covering your
sneezes may not lead to the end of the world, but it can definitely spread your
germs around the office and make you less popular with your colleagues...
References
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