THREE out of 10 men you shake hands with won't have washed after going to the toilet. The observational study of 200 people, who used the public toilets at a food hall in an Australian shopping centre, showed that 29 per cent of men and eight per cent of women failed to wash their hands after using the food hall's bathroom. Young girls were best at washing and drying their hands correctly, while older men were the worst performers.

Hand-washing is the cheapest way of controlling disease but less than one-third of men and two-thirds of women wash their hands with soap after going to the toilet, a British study by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine showed.

People are more likely to wash their hands properly after using the toilet if they are shamed into it or think they are being watched. When prompted by an electronic message flashing up on a board asking: "Is the person next to you washing with soap?," around 12 percent more men and 11 percent more women used soap.

In an observational study sponsored by the American Society for Microbiology (ASM) and The Soap and Detergent Association (SDA), slightly over three-quarters of men and women (77%) washed their hands in public restrooms - a six percent decline from a similar study conducted in 2005. Yet in a separate telephone survey, 92% of adults say they wash their hands in public restrooms.

Health authorities around the world are stepping up efforts to persuade people to be more hygienic and wash their hands properly to help slow the spread of H1N1 swine flu, which was declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization.

"Hand-washing with soap has been ranked the most cost-effective intervention for the worldwide control of disease," the study's authors wrote. "It could save more than a million lives a year from diarrheal diseases, and prevent respiratory infections - the biggest causes of child mortality in developing countries".

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