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Get Vaccinated! | Wash Your Hands | Cover Your Cough
Fall brings more than cooler temperatures, it brings sniffles, sneezes, coughs, colds and for 1 out of 5 people, it brings Influenza (flu).
For people with chronic diseases, the flu can be deadly. Each year approximately 36,000 U.S. residents die from the flu and 200,000 people are hospitalized. A few simple precautions can save you a few miserable days or possibly your life.
Get Vaccinated!
An annual flu vaccine is the best way to reduce your chance of getting the flu. Flu vaccines use killed or weakened forms of flu viruses to stimulate production of antibodies in the body. Once your body makes enough antibodies, it is protected against flu infection. Flu vaccine changes every year, so you should get vaccinated every year.
People with the following chronic diseases are at higher risk to get the flu and are strongly advised to get vaccinated:
- Arthritis
- Asthma
- Cancer
- Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease
- Diabetes
- Dialysis patients
- Emphysema
- Heart disease and stroke
- HIV/AIDS
- Hypertension (high blood pressure)
- Transplant patients
Vaccinations are available at the Southern Nevada Health District Monday - Friday, 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. For more information about flu vaccine, locations and cost, visit the Influenza webpages at www.southernnevadahealthdistrict.org. Vaccine is available from October through March.
Wash Your Hands
Proper hand washing is the most effective way to prevent the spread of infectious diseases.
Follow these five simple steps to wash your hands:
- Turn on the faucet to start the warm running water. Wet your hands.
- Apply soap and lather well, scrubbing between fingers, wrists, backs of hands and under nails for at least 20 seconds.
- Rinse with warm water running from your wrist down to your fingertips, then into the sink.
- With the water still running, dry your hands well. Disposable towels or air hand dryers are required in public restrooms.
- Using the disposable towel, turn off the sink faucet and then dispose. Keep washed hands covered to prevent recontamination.
Once you have properly washed your hands, an alcohol-based hand sanitizer may be used. Use hand lotion if dry skin becomes a problem.
Don’t assume that children know how to wash their hands properly. Supervision, especially in a childcare setting, is essential to forming good hand washing habits in children.
It is important to teach children how to wash their hands using the same steps listed above. Teach them to sing “Row, Row, Row Your Boat," or the “Happy Birthday” song while washing their hands to ensure they wash them for the proper length of time.
Adults and children should wash their hands:
- After touching bare human body parts other than clean hands and clean, exposed portions of arms.
- Before and after eating or drinking.
- After playing outdoors.
- After playing with pets.
- After using the bathroom.
- After coughing, sneezing or blowing their noses.
- After handling soiled equipment or utensils.
- After food preparation, as often as necessary to remove soil and contamination and to prevent cross-contamination when changing tasks.
- After switching between working with raw food and working with ready-to-eat food.
- After engaging in other activities that contaminate the hands.
For more information on hand washing, visit the Hand Washing webpage at www.southernnevadahealthdistrict.org.
Cover Your Cough
Stop the spread of germs that make you and others sick by covering your cough or sneeze. Follow these simple steps to protect yourself and others:
- Cover your mouth and nose with a tissue when you cough or sneeze or cough or sneeze into the upper sleeve, not your hands.
- Put your tissue in the waste basket. Don't carry it around in your pocket or handbag.
- Clean your hands after coughing or sneezing with soap and water or clean with an alcohol-based hand cleaner.
Download the Cover Your Cough PDF (160 kb/1 page) flyer to educate others on how to prevent the spread of germs this flu season.
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