Dr. Will Sawyer and Henry the Hand Champion Handwasher Have Discovered How to PREVENT the Flu and Common Cold!! DO NOT TOUCH the T Zone!

CINCINNATI, Dec. 2 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — What is the T Zone? It is the mucous membranes of your eyes, nose or mouth. Touching your mucous membranes is how most germs enter your body and grow to make you sick. Touching the T Zone is also referred to as direct inoculation or contamination, eye rubbing, nose picking, nail biting and many other descriptors. By simply increasing public awareness about this habit you will help reduce flu and flu-like illness this winter. It is also one of the Principles of Hand Awareness endorsed by the AMA and AAFP.

The 4 Principles of Hand Awareness include:

1. Wash your hands before you eat and when they are dirty.
2. Do not cough into your hands.
3. Do not sneeze into your hands.
4. Do not put your finger into your eyes, nose or mouth.

Did you know 164,000,000 days are lost from school due to illness, of which 22,000,000 are due to the common cold alone? Imagine not being sick this winter! Infection prevention starts with you and your Hands. Hands are the vector that transmit a majority of the germs causing respiratory and gastro-intestinal illnesses. It is not forgetting our hat or going out in the rain that causes us to become ill. We humans are the petri dish that grow and spread these diseases. Help break this chain reaction of disease by “speaking up” when someone touches the T Zone. Lend a Hand to your friends, family and fellow employees in meetings to “stand up” if they touch the T zone (breaching their mucous membranes), as a friendly reminder. No one chooses to be ill; it is an “unconscious” behavior that causes it!

Help keep your family, friends and fellow employees healthy this winter! Nothing stops the spread of sickness like simple hand washing, according to Dr. Will Sawyer founder of the Henry the Hand foundation. “Hand awareness and hand washing is the most effective way to prevent cold and flu infection,” said Dr. Sawyer. CDC estimates that 36,000 people die from the flu or flu-like illness each year, 5,000 people die from food borne illness each year, and 90,000 patients die each year from Hospital Acquired Infections (HAI), for which poor handwashing is a direct link.

Help celebrate National Handwashing Awareness Week December 7th-13th, 2008. Visit www.henrythehand.com for fun ideas to change everyone’s habit! Please lend a hand to Henry the Hand and Dr. Will to help spread the word not the germs!

The first National Handwashing Awareness Week started in 1999 in Cincinnati, Ohio due to the Flu vaccine shortage by the collaboration of the Henry the Hand Foundation and the Greater Cincinnati Health Council Flu Vaccine Committee to educate the public about Handwashing as the first line of defense against the Flu or Flu-like illness.

SOURCE Henry the Hand Foundation