Hand dryers worse than paper towels for spreading germs

by
in science on (#PBJR)
Researchers have discovered that when hands are poorly washed airborne germ counts are 27 times higher around air dryers in comparison with the air around paper towel dispensers. This shows that both jet and warm air hand dryers spread bacteria into the air and onto users and those nearby. "These findings are important for understanding the ways in which bacteria spread, with the potential to transmit illness and disease," said Professor Mark Wilcox, who led the study.

Researchers collected air samples around the hand dryers and also at distances of one and two meters away. They found that air bacterial counts close to jet air dryers were 4.5 times higher than around warm air dryers and 27 times higher compared with the air when using paper towels. Next to the dryers, bacteria persisted in the air well beyond the 15 second hand-drying time, with approximately half (48 percent) collected more than five minutes after drying ended and still detected in the air 15 minutes after hand drying.

"Discovered" ? (Score: 1)

by evilss@pipedot.org on 2015-10-04 21:06 (#PES2)

This has been know about for decades. Hell when I was in college in the early 90's one of my intro microbiology labs involved taking samples from the bathrooms, including sampling the air from the hand dryers. It's the reason I skip hand dryers to this day.
Post Comment
Subject
Comment
Captcha
How many colors in the list cake, cake, brown, green and white?