Amongst all the hysteria about the H1N1 and the flu in general, there has been little discussion about how respiratory illnesses are actually spread. With the exception of a few rare respiratory diseases (tuberculosis being a notable exception), these illnesses are not spread by breathing in droplets. They truly need to be directly placed on your eyes, nose, or mouth to be spread.
For the mothers out there, this can certainly occur when a child you are holding coughs or sneezes in your face. But, in typical human interaction this is rarely the case. We polite adults make great efforts to cover our coughs and sneezes. This, however, is likely the source of the spread. It is these hands that are covered with viral respiratory droplets that touch our door handles, remote controls, keyboards, faucets, etc.
However, it is not enough for our hands to have the virus particles on them. They are not absorbed through the skin. We must then take our contaminated hands and inoculate our eyes, mouth or nose with the infections. By the way, the eyes are the best source for direct inoculation of infections.
As such, if I could give one take home message it is this: DO NOT TOUCH YOUR FACE. Avoiding touching your face is the number one thing you can do to avoid cold and flu infections of all varieties.
by Rambod A. Rouhbakhsh, MD, MBA, FAAFP, FASLMS
Site Medical Director, Legacy Medical Group -
Lake Oswego/West Linn/Canby/Woodburn
Primary Care Physician,
Legacy Medical Group – Lake Oswego
412 A Ave., Suite 200
503.635.2496
Healthy MOM™ is brought to you
in partnership with Legacy Health.