Unwashed hands are vehicles of infection and therefore effective hand washing is a fundamental principle of personal hygiene and indeed of food hygiene, and must be carried out on a regular basis in order to reduce the numbers of transient pathogenic bacteria, which could give rise to contamination of foodstuffs.

Wash your hands after

• handling raw foods such as; meat, poultry, eggs, fruit and vegetables
• handling refuse
• going to the toilet
• you have been using cleaning chemicals
• coughing, sneezing and /or blowing your nose
• handling money
• touching your hair, face or other parts of the body
• smoking; and
• in between handling different foods