Especially these days, everyone probably does it hundreds of times — rubbing hands with disinfectants, rubbing kitchen counters with antibacterial wipes, tapping the toilet seat cover in public toilets, using feet, elbows, or shoulders. I tried to open the bathroom door — everything in the name of keeping these nasty and scary invisible bacteria away.
But what if all of this careful cleaning is a futile exercise? Is it even possible to keep bacteria away?
Emily Sickbert Bennett, director of the University of North Carolina at Chapel (UNC) Medical Center’s Infection Prevention Program and associate professor of epidemiology and infectious diseases at the University of North Carolina at Chapel of Medicine, is not.
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“There are more bacteria in and on our bodies than cells,” Sickbert-Bennett told Live Science. She added that there are many naturally occurring bacteria throughout water, soil and other animals.
But not all of these microbes are bad, she said. In fact, most of them are harmless unless you get to the wrong place. Staphylococcus It lives harmless to the human nose, but can be fatal in the bloodstream.
Other microorganisms are always pathogenic, which means they are always at risk of illness. The virus that causes COVID-19 is one of these, Sickbert-Bennett said. These more problematic microbes can be what most people are worried about when trying to get rid of “bacteria”.
So is there any hope to keep our environment away from these microscopic bad guys?
According to Sickbert-Bennett, the better question is not how to keep the surface free of bacteria, but how to prevent bacteria found in the environment from causing infection.
“Surfaces can be disinfected with daily wipes and sprays, which ensures that the microbes found on those surfaces are eliminated,” she said, but those surfaces tend to be continuously recontaminated. .. Microbes are exchanged each time the two surfaces interact, such as a doorknob and a finger. In addition, microbes in the air can quickly resettle on freshly disinfected surfaces.
“The most important thing is to really think about the’chain of infection’,” said Schickbert Bennett. It’s a small step required for a virus-like microbe to infect someone. “Where are the points along the chain that can be interrupted?” She asked.
This means that harmful microbes can invade your home or skin, but it is important to prevent them from invading where they can cause infection. For example, a COVID-19 bug needs to be transferred to a person’s respiratory system and eyes unharmed, so washing your hands before touching your nose, mouth, or eyes will break the COVID-19 transmission route.
So think about keeping E. coli Trying to get out of the intestines and maintain adenovirus by properly cooking food — common Pink eyes Criminal — Wash your hands and keep them out of your eyes. But if not, don’t put too much emphasis on the microbial world in which humans live. Most of these bacteria have a purpose and do not pose a risk to human health. In fact, according to a study examining sterile mice, Helen Von, a postdoctoral fellow in integrated biology and physiology at the University of California, Los Angeles, says that in fact many microbes help animals reproduce and survive. Written in conversation..
“Even in our bodies, there are many good bacteria that can help defeat the more pathogenic bacteria and keep us healthy,” said Sickbert-Bennett.
Originally published in Live Science.
