Dr Adele McCormick, Virologist and Senior Lecturer for the Biomedical Science MSc course, was featured in an explainer video for the BBC about how to avoid germs and avoid infections in light of the ongoing Coronavirus outbreak.
Discussing how to prevent catching a virus, Dr McCormick said: “Avoid touching your face, your mouth your nose and your eyes as these are possible routes for the virus to enter and cause infection.
“If you cough or sneeze and you don’t put your hand to your mouth and touch surfaces, the virus can survive for several hours outside of the body, so it’s important that you wash your hands effectively to prevent transmission of the virus from person to person.”
Talking about how to wash your hands effectively, she said: “Wet your hands, take some soap and create a lather. Clean the back of your hands, in between your fingers, the end of your fingers, your thumbs, your palms, wrists and the top of your hand again.
“Rinse the soap off with water and turn off the tap with the tissue to prevent cross contamination and then you discard of the tissue into a bin.”
Her hands were then examined under a UV light to see whether germs were still present. Under the UV light after washing her hands thoroughly, no germs could be seen.
However, when demonstrating the wrong way to wash your hands, the video shows Dr McCormick washing her hands quickly and non-thoroughly, turning the tap off without tissue and drying her hands and leaving the tissue on the sink.
She added: “As you can see there is UV fluorescing, indicating germs present around my nail area and on the back of my hands from not washing my hands effectively.”
Watch the full video on the BBC News website.
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