What should you dry your hands on

We are always told how important it is to wash our hands to stop the spread of infections. In a public washroom, the choice is usually between a paper or textile towel and an electric hand dryer, which could be either a warm-air dryer or a jet-air dryer. Sounds innocent enough, but according to some studies , all of the methods can infect you and other people in the bathroom by transmitting bacteria, fungi and viruses into the air.

Viruses, such as those causing flu, colds, herpes, hepatitis, winter vomiting disease and diarrhoea can contaminate your hands and remain there for minutes, hours or even days. So which method should you choose?

The differences are, in fact, very significant. Despite often being marketed as the most hygienic way to dry your hands, jet-air dryers actually produce over 60 times more viral contamination than dryers using warm air. Paper towels, while still capable of spreading some viruses, transmit even less — 1, times less than jet hand dryers, to be precise. So how did we go about go about our research into hand drying and how the methods spread viruses differently?

Did you know that wet hands can spread up to times more bacteria than dry hands? The most common hand drying methods involve the use of paper towels, continuous paper rolls and a wide range of electrical hand dryers warm air, cold air, jet air etc.

The choice of method varies based on practical and economic reasons. Hand drying methods have been studied with the aim of determining which is the most environmental friendly, the most effective in drying hands and the more appropriate to avoid the spread of germs. Warm air hand dryers have been recognised as being more environmental friendly than the use of roll paper towels 2 , however the results relating to their hygiene are less positive.

A review of hand washing in the retail food industry 3 suggested that air dryers should not be used, because they accumulate aerosol from toilets and can then contaminate hands with the air blowing through the outlet. This finding was confirmed by another study 4 that found microorganisms such as Staphylococcus heamolyticus , Pseudomonas alcaligenes and Bacillus cereus were emitted from all the hand dryers in washrooms sampled for the investigation.

In a recent study paper towels, warm air dryers and jet air dryers were compared for virus dispersal from artificially contaminated hands during the drying process 7. The authors found that the jet hand dryer lead to a significantly greater and further dispersal of the surrogate virus used for the experiment than the warm hand dryer and the paper towels respectively.

These results are in line with other findings where jet dryers were demonstrated to disperse more microbial contamination than other drying methods paper towels, roller towels, warm air dryer 8, 9. However along with the use of paper towels comes the issue of how and where to appropriately store them before use and how to dispose of them after use.

Microorganisms are transferred from people's hands to the paper towels, which can then potentially act as a bacteriological reservoir if paper towel disposal was not managed correctly 6. Answer From Pritish K. Tosh, M. Show references Frequent questions about hand hygiene. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Accessed April 2, Show me the science — How to wash your hands.

Reynolds KA, et al. Comparison of electric hand dryers and paper towels for hand hygiene: A critical review of the literature. Journal of Applied Microbiology.

Suen LKP, et al. Microbiological evaluation of different hand drying methods for removing bacteria from washed hands. Scientific Reports. See also 3 ways to get closer to achieving your goals Make healthy habits stick 5 do's and don'ts for staying motivated 3 ways to avoid secondhand smoke 7 signs and symptoms not to ignore Energy management After COVID vaccination: Is it OK to visit with loved ones?

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