Hand hygiene and risk of influenza virus infections in the community: a systematic review and meta-analysis.

ABSTRACT: Community-based prevention strategies for seasonal and pandemic influenza are essential to minimize their potential threat to public health. Our aim was to evaluate the efficacy of hand hygiene interventions in reducing influenza transmission in the community and to investigate the possible modifying effects of latitude, temperature and humidity on hand hygiene efficacy. We identified 979 articles in the initial search and 10 randomized controlled trials met our inclusion criteria. The combination of hand hygiene with facemasks was found to have statistically significant efficacy against laboratory-confirmed influenza while hand hygiene alone did not. Our meta-regression model did not identify statistically significant effects of latitude, temperature or humidity on the efficacy of hand hy

SUBMITTER: Wong VW 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4891197 | biostudies-literature | 2014 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature