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Hand Washing—A Critical Aspect of Personal Hygiene in Pharma
Author: Scott Sutton

“Microbiology Topics” discusses various topics in microbiology of practical use in validation and compliance. We intend this column to be a useful resource for daily work applications.

Reader comments, questions, and suggestions are needed to help us fulfill our objective for this column. Case studies from readers are most welcome. Please send your comments and suggestions to column coordinator Scott Sutton at scott.sutton@microbiol.org or journal coordinating editor Susan Haigney at shaigney@advanstar.com.

KEY POINTS
The following key points are addressed in this article:
• Good personal hygiene is a requirement of all pharmaceutical activities, from operating on the line through validations. However, studies show poor compliance as a rule to basic hand washing technique.
• Poor hand washing technique may result in increased absenteeism, particularly in time of a potential H1N1 pandemic.
• Limited availability to adequate facilities may lead to poor compliance or poor efficacy of washing if performed. These facilities include appropriately constructed and sourced water supply, soap supply, and perhaps most importantly, adequate provisions for thorough drying of hands.

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