Rethinking handwashing during food preparation - Crowd 360

Findings from our recent field study with Supertowel in Hitsats refugee camp in Tigray, Ethiopia

#handwashing #globalhandwashingday #supertowel #realrelief #cleanhands

How often have you had to take a phone call while cooking? Attend to a crying child while cooking? How often have you had to wait for your dish to cook and in the meantime, you’ve chosen to occupy yourself with a range of other household tasks? In the process of food preparation (and due to interruptions commonly experienced during the food preparation process), we frequently re-contaminate our hands. In many high income settings where we have ‘designed-out’ a lot of our environmental risks, this may not be a major issue. But in low and middle income contexts, or in refugee camps like Hitsats, this re-contamination poses a genuine diarrhoeal disease risk. If the men in the scenario above were to have strictly adhered to the WASH sector’s advice, then collectively they would have had to wash their hands with soap more than 30 times! Obviously, this is an impractical amount of time and effort. In a context like Hitsats where water and soap are limited, it also would simply not be possible.

In Hitsats camp, there have been trials on a new hand cleaning product that might be able to reduce re-contamination during the food preparation process. The product is called the SuperTowel. At first glance, the towel looks much like a standard microfiber dishcloth. But when dipped into water, its superpower is activated! The SuperTowel fabric is treated with a permanent anti-microbial bonding. When the damp towel is rubbed against the hands, pathogens are transferred to the fabric where they are killed. The anti-microbial technology does not involve toxic chemicals. Instead, it is achieved by long chains of carbon atoms attached to positively charged nitrogen atoms bonded to a silica layer of the fabric. The positively charged layer attracts negatively charged microbes (including bacteria, protozoa, fungi and encapsulated viruses) causing membrane disruption of the microbes. Earlier this year, we conducted laboratory tests on the SuperTowel and found that under controlled conditions it was more efficacious than handwashing with soap. Even with this success in the lab, we weren’t sure whether the SuperTowel would be an acceptable or practical product for humanitarian crises or other settings where handwashing with soap is challenging.

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