The importance of thorough handwashing for safe contact lens care will be the key message of the General Optical Council’s Love Your Lenses Week (March 24-30).
Data published by the GOC ahead of the awareness week revealed that young people aged between 18 and 24 were four times less likely to wash their hands before touching their eyes than people aged over 65 years. Touching or rubbing eyes with unclean hands can spread infections, including the common cold and the Council has urged contact lens wearers to ‘always wash hands and dry before touching your eye.’
Professor Phillip Morgan, director of Eurolens Research and head of optometry at The University of Manchester, said: ‘Thoroughly washing and drying hands before applying contact lenses significantly reduces the risk of transferring potentially harmful germs to the eye, making it one of the most important steps for wearers of all types of contact lenses to remember.’
The GOC has produced the Rule of T.H.U.M.B. mnemonic as part of a package to promote effective hand-washing. It draws on academic research summarised in the Thumbs Up for Healthy Eyes report, which highlights thumbs as an area of the hand that is often not washed adequately.
Rule of T.H.U.M.B
Thumbs - don’t forget them!
Happy Birthday – sing it twice while you wash your hands
Under the nails – need a good scrub
Massage soap into palms, backs of hands, fingers and thumbs
Both hands dry? Now you can touch your eye
