Hand sanitizers, masks 'curb' flu
Source: Agencies |
January 29, 2010, Friday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
WANT to be prepared for a flu pandemic? You may want to stock up on face masks and hand sanitizer, according to a US study.
Researchers from the University of Michigan found that college students living in residency halls who wore the masks for a few hours a day and regularly used alcohol-based hand sanitizer halved their risk of coming down with flu-like illness.
"We do think it probably would generalize to other settings in which you have people living in close quarters and eating in shared facilities," Dr Allison Aiello said.
Non-drug interventions like hand hygiene and face masks are likely to be important in fighting any flu pandemic, Aiello and her team pointed out in their study published in the Journal of Infectious Diseases.
They said during the current H1N1 epidemic vaccines were slow to arrive and use of antiviral drugs was "limited."
To investigate what measures might be most effective in preventing spread of the flu, the researchers divided 1,437 college students into three groups, based on which residence hall they lived in.
One group used masks and hand-sanitizers, a second group wore face masks only, and the third was a control group. Aiello and her team kicked off the study as soon as the university confirmed the first case of influenza on campus, but continued enrolling study participants for the first two weeks.
Aiello said during the two weeks, there was no difference among the three groups in the incidence of flu-like illness, probably because the flu season was just beginning.
But for the last couple of weeks of the study, she and her colleagues found that students using face masks and hand sanitizer were 35 percent to 51 percent less likely to develop flu-like illness than students in the control group.
Researchers from the University of Michigan found that college students living in residency halls who wore the masks for a few hours a day and regularly used alcohol-based hand sanitizer halved their risk of coming down with flu-like illness.
"We do think it probably would generalize to other settings in which you have people living in close quarters and eating in shared facilities," Dr Allison Aiello said.
Non-drug interventions like hand hygiene and face masks are likely to be important in fighting any flu pandemic, Aiello and her team pointed out in their study published in the Journal of Infectious Diseases.
They said during the current H1N1 epidemic vaccines were slow to arrive and use of antiviral drugs was "limited."
To investigate what measures might be most effective in preventing spread of the flu, the researchers divided 1,437 college students into three groups, based on which residence hall they lived in.
One group used masks and hand-sanitizers, a second group wore face masks only, and the third was a control group. Aiello and her team kicked off the study as soon as the university confirmed the first case of influenza on campus, but continued enrolling study participants for the first two weeks.
Aiello said during the two weeks, there was no difference among the three groups in the incidence of flu-like illness, probably because the flu season was just beginning.
But for the last couple of weeks of the study, she and her colleagues found that students using face masks and hand sanitizer were 35 percent to 51 percent less likely to develop flu-like illness than students in the control group.
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