A proposal on design and construction of an automatic soap and water dispensers.

Abstract

Hand washing is regarded as the first and main way in which personal hygiene is expressed. It is a central component to religious and cultural customs for many years. Despite, the well outlined and re-known importance of handwashing, its link with health was first made less than two centuries ago. An estimated 2.5 million hospital-acquired infections (HAIs) occur annually in the United States. These infections are associated with 90,000 preventable deaths of patients and financial costs in excess of $4.5 billion annually Deaths due to HAIs are usually attributed to suboptimal practice by health care workers (HCWs), particularly poor hand hygiene. Promoting hand hygiene compliance is an ongoing public health effort. Proper hand hygiene is among the most important measures for preventing and controlling microbial pathogen cross-transmission and is a cost effective intervention for the control of many infectious diseases. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Cover Your Cough campaign advised people to use their upper sleeve or elbow, rather than a hand, to cover their mouth when they cough (Jamieson et al., 2006). Hand-washing promotion probably reduces diarrhea episodes in both child day-care centers in high-income countries and among communities living in LMICs by about 30%. Despite efforts to increase public awareness, hand hygiene compliance rates are difficult to influence and remain stubbornly low. In particular, increasing hand-washing rates after the use of public restrooms has been challenging. Interventions have been tested in numerous settings (e.g., schools and hospitals); however, no single intervention has produced consistent and lasting improvements in hand-washing rates.