You will stop using the hand dryer in the toilet immediately after reading this article

We all know the importance of washing hands with soap to prevent the infection of pathogenic bacteria. However, not many people pay attention to the next important step: How to dry your hands also greatly affects your health.

Usually public toilets give you two options: a dryer or a paper towel. Most people choose dryers without knowing it increases the likelihood of spreading the virus up to 1,300 times. What a terrible number!

Dryers in public toilets are increasing the risk of spreading the disease.

To investigate this issue, scientists from Westminster University London used a harmless virus called MS2. The virus only infects bacteria, but has dispersing properties similar to human viruses. Many previous scientific studies have used the MS2 virus .

They use human-made cardboard models, coated with microbial markers. They were placed near a hand dryer in the toilet to see if this activity would disperse MS2 bacteria in the air and where they would end up on the body of the person standing next to it.

The results show that with wind speeds of up to 134m / s, dryers can blow viruses as far as 3 meters and disperse 190 times easier than using paper towels. They end the journey by clinging to human models that focus on the face of the model representing children, the abdomen and the chest representing the adult model.

Not only does the virus spread faster, the dryer also makes them stay longer. After 15 minutes, room air samples were recovered and concentration of viruses concentrated in the case of using a dryer was more than 100 compared to using paper towels.

By mathematical modeling, the research team representative concluded that the dryer was increasing the spread of the pathogens in the toilet by up to 1,300 times, compared with the use of paper towels. These agents include fungi, bacteria, flu viruses, herpes, hepatitis .

Paper towels can be a safer option for health.

The terrible difference comes from the mechanism by which the dryer works. Typically, they use heat and a high-speed air blower to remove water from the hand. This causes the disturbed air to spread pathogens throughout the room.

There are dryers that only use heat without blowing fans, but they still increase the chances of spreading the disease by 60 times the paper towels. The study also showed that hand dryers are pointing upwards more harmful than dryers facing the floor.

In 2014, another University of Leeds study also found that the number of bacteria on the dryer was 27 times higher than that of paper towels. Earlier in 2005, a study done in Germany indicated that wiping paper with hands helped remove 24% of bacteria. Meanwhile, the dryer increased the number to 17%.

It seems that all of these findings are supporting the reuse of the traditional method of hand cleaning, instead of the drying device that is considered modern and luxurious. The facilities that should re-evaluate this problem are hospitals, operating rooms, and restaurants first. These are important places to control the spread of disease.