The usefulness of hand washing during field training to prevent acute respiratory illness in a military training facility

Kim, Ho Seung; Ko, Ryoung Eun; Ji, Misuk; Lee, Ju-Hyung; Lee, Chang-Seop; Lee, Hyun

In this view, our study is well designed to show the importance of hand washing along with its preventive role of ARIs during outdoor activities. Furthermore, this study was relatively well controlled because the environments of the 2 groups were almost the same, with the exception of their hand washing regimes. The lower rate of ARI prevention in the late hand washing group may be attributed to the ineffectiveness of hand washing when the pathogen is already widely spread throughout a group. Thus, our study suggests that hand washing during outdoor activities should be emphasized as early as possible, especially to those who live in groups in which endemic viral infections are expected. We also suspect this can be applied to the general population.