SO, WHAT DO CANADIANS HAVE NOT TO BE PROUD OF?

Canadians fail to practice good hygiene: study

Even though Canadians know hand-washing is important, some would rather just zip up than turn on the tap after going to the bathroom, according to a new international survey.

Almost three quarters of Canadians surveyed (74 per cent) said they understood that regular hand washing could greatly reduce the spread of germs in the home.

However, the report by the Hygiene Council said 12 per cent admitted they didn't wash their hands before eating or handling food. And nine per cent said they didn't wash up after going to the toilet.

"Hand washing is so important," British virologist Dr. John Oxford, chair of the Hygiene Council.

"I can see people washing their hands, like men in men's toilets...They tend to just put their hands under the tap for a couple of seconds and go out and that's not really enough," he told CTV's Canada AM on Friday.

Oxford said for hand-washing to be effective, you need to use soap, and lather up for at least 20 seconds. As a rule, try singing Happy Birthday twice through.

"That will be the time you need to spend washing your hands."

Aside from hand-washing, it's also important the people understand that surfaces need to be cleaned to keep germs away.

"It's not the toilet that's causing problems because most people's toilets are perfectly okay. It's the sink," said Oxford.

"They should be concentrate on cleaning the surfaces in their kitchens, in their home, doorknobs and that sort of thing. That will break the chain of transmission."

The Hygiene Council is a think-tank whose objective is to increase hygiene knowledge around the world. It is made up of infectious disease experts around the world, including Canada's Dr. Low.

Low said people should consider washing their hands about five times a day, but do not be compulsive about it.

"We need a cultural change here,'' Low, chief microbiologist at Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto, told The Canadian Press.

"We did it with seatbelts. In Canada, we've done it with smoking. . . . Now we've got to do it with hand hygiene. And I think that it would be a worthy investment.''

The Hygiene Council receives grants from Reckitt Benckiser, which makes home-cleaning supplies such as the Lysol and Dettol disinfectant products.

At least 9,000 people worldwide were surveyed for this latest report, which was also conducted in Britain, Italy, Germany, the United States, South Africa, the United Arab Emirates, India and Malaysia.

For the Canadian survey, 1015 randomly-selected people were interviewed in the second week of August. The results are considered accurate to within 3.1 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.

*With files from The Canadian Press