Next to cleanliness

doi:10.1136/bmj.39455.595255.47

BMJ 2008;336 (12 January), doi:10.1136/bmj.39455.595255.47

Editor's Choice

Next to cleanliness

Fiona Godlee, editor, BMJ

fgodlee@bmj.com

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

Whether or not pandemic flu is on its way, it’s likelywe’ll see an increase in flu cases this winter, with alltheir attendant misery and cost. We have vaccines and antiviraldrugs, but how effective are simple hygiene measures—handwashing and face masks?

Tom Jefferson and colleagues have looked at the evidence, siftingthrough 2300 articles to find 51 studies worth considering (doi:10.1136/bmj.39393.510347.BE). They conclude that these simpleand low cost interventions can reduce spread, with the mostimpressive reductions in respiratory illness coming from highquality cluster randomised trials of hand washing in youngerchildren. They extrapolate from case-control studies from theSARS outbreaks in Asia to derive numbers needed to treat andestimate that washing hands between patients or wearing masks,gloves, or gowns in four to six hospital or community initiativeswould contain one epidemic. Combining the individual measuresbrings the number needed to . . . [Full text of this article]

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