Festive seasons like you have during Christmas and New year come and go , but some preventable problems declare them selves soon after, and may accompany affected persons in to the new year. Overindulgence, and carelessness especially with personal safety and hygiene during such periods often come with severe consequences. There is usually more than enough for every one to eat and drink, but understandably, some people may prefer to go way from the regular home meals which pattern have become quite predictable, to places where the spice of life they argue is variety. Whether or not you choose to eat and drink within the comfort of their homes,, and for those who travel out to celebrate a few issues are worth considering.
Food hygiene involves every thing that has to do with food from the point it is manufactured or farm-produced to that when it is put on the dining table. Food processing attempts to make food as safe as possible while retaining its nutritional appeal and values. Food handling comes in at different stages in the long chain.
Though other parts of the human body like the feet are frequently involved in the production of some types of food, perhaps the most common are the hands. Medical people refer to the hand as the portion beginning from the wrist, passing through the palm/back of hand, and ending in the fingers. The hands are used voluntarily, but at times we use our them reflexly and without much effort as will occur when a house fly(Musca domestica) gets too close to our eyes , we very quickly get rid of it sometimes by crushing and rubbing the debris with the other hand, and within the next 2 hours, we have shared the remains of the dead fly together with the load of infective material, carried in its hairy paws with several unsuspecting friends and neighbours.
The hands have been found to be very useful in other areas beside defense and food gathering, Finger prints for crime detection and genetic analysis, estimation of stature, sex determination in cases of hermaphrodites, evaluation of the degree of familial predisposition to cancer are some of the areas where scientists have found the human hand to be useful. Beyond that, Physicians routinely examine the hand for clues on diseases occurring elsewhere in the body such as finger clubbing, brittle nails, excessively dark pigmentation of the palms and fingers etc. These may not show diseases that may have arisen because of poor hand hygiene
Infection may be caused either by organisms from the host’s normal flora (endogenous infection) or by organisms transmitted from another source (exogenous infection).For endogenous infection, the normal flora will only invade if circumstances permit, as in Staphylococcus aureus that are normally found in the nose; when food is contaminated with a type and volume of this organism high enough to cause disease, you have food poisoning and can result in mass death.
In the same token, we pick up organisms from parts of our body where they are usually resident without causing diseases; we do this when we scratch armpits, nose, ear, vagina, anus, groin, scalp, beard etc
In other instances the foundation for infection is laid when we use handkerchiefs for days and weeks without washing them, when we sneeze directly into our hands and hurry about our business. Some mothers especially the illiterate ones change baby under wears and simply clean their hands on their wrappers ,most educated women are less likely to run foul,
Other women making the delicacy of roast plantain and fish along the roads bother very little about what they do with their hands or the condition around them; many cases of salmonella enteritis can be traced to these outfits but no one can dispute that they have come to stay.
Patients considered neutropenic are particularly prone to infection from organisms normally held in check by the body’s defenses.
In the case of exogenous infection, the most important source of human infection is other humans. On the other hand, animal pathogens may be spread to humans by direct contact
or in food. Such infections are called zoo noses and are common among people who on commercial scale rear pigs for pork meat, those who have poultry farms in their compounds, and fish farmers(cat fish) etc
Battery hens are especially prone to the spread of Salmonella Sp, and poultry farmers are expected to maintain high levels of hand hygiene, if they know the danger of outbreaks of salmonella food poisoning
Humans can also become infected from organisms in the inanimate(abiotic) environment. For example, poorly maintained air-conditioning cooling towers can be a source of Legionella pneumonia. Listeria monocytogenes, is a Gram-positive organisms found in soil or animal faeces and can grow at low temperatures (4-10 °C);
Factory workers usually change to ordinary dresses before living the premises but may hurriedly leave without washing their hands . Chemicals like lead, Arsenic, Mercury and petroleum degradation products are taken home Where they can directly contaminate food, water and drink.
Doctors and nurses are careful to wash their hands every now and then to avoid hospital acquired infections.
Another very common source of hand infection is money. Paper money can get diseases from scabies, staph and Candida sp from the skin of infected individuals to others that are healthy but lazy when it comes to personal cleanliness Mechanisms of microbial organism transmission and survival.
The host can aid survival, when the infecting organism is able to persist for a long time in the host, this acts as a reservoir of infection. Diarrhoea associated microorganisms when excreted in faeces, spread to other people through food or water(faecal-oral transmission).
In addition, microorganisms have developed unique structures and behavior patterns that enable them survive and reproduce; “Spore forming bacteria ,have a tough coat and other mechanisms that enable them survive for many years.
“•The eggs of Helminth(worms) have a tough coat adapted for survival in the environment.
Airborne.
A single sneeze can propell a cone of organism from the nose and mouth and these can remain suspended in the air on droplet nuclei (5 ?m).
Infection occurs when these are inhaled by another person. Chest infections are mainly transmitted in this way.
Faecal-oral
Food and water contain pathogens that may infect the intestinal tract (e.g. Salmonella). Toxoplasmosis and cysticercosis, which infect organs remote from the gut, are also transmitted by this route.
Vector-borne
Insects that feed on blood may transmit a wide range of pathogens: most importantly female anophelene mosquitoes transmit malaria. Other mosquitoes carry Filariasis responsible for limb swellings(ELEPHANTIASIS) others transmit Yellow fever.Moreover, there are other situations where it is the wastes from the insect that carries pathogenic organisms, and so using your bare hands to kill mosquitoes and other insect is unhealthy and potentially dangerous to yourself and others around you
Sexual transmission
Sexual intercourse allows organisms to be transmitted. Examples include Hepatitis, Neisseria gonorrhoeae, Chancroid, Candida albicans and HIV. Transmission of HIV, Hepatitis especially Hepatitis B and C as well as Hemophylus Ducreyi Chancroid is enhanced not only by genital ulceration, but also ignorance and bad personal hygiene
Short term effecst for contaminated food or water for instance may include attacks in asthmatics or fatal reaction in persons with blood related disorders,
Long term effects, may be slow to develop as in Cancer of the liver, breast, prostate and lungs.
