Protect Your University Campus From The Cost Of Contamination Diseases
Simple Steps To Keep University Campus Free From Contamination Diseases
The visual appearance of a university is as vital as the value it provides to the students academically. No matter how reputed a university is, students would be more likely to avoid it unless it presents clean and hygienic surroundings.
Lack of cleanliness could distract students from their aim of education and affect their performance in their studies. It may also hamper the quality of information imparted by the faculty teaches to the students.
Contamination diseases are usually found in places where there are huge crowds of people. And they usually spread through food. If proper hygiene is not maintained, these disease-causing germs may easily get mixed with food and spread illness.
Most contamination illnesses are food-borne illnesses due to contact with dirty surfaces or to handle with unclean hands.
The facilities management at universities needs to put in writing the required policy framework in form of an SOP for keeping the campus clean. A consolidated list of regulations about maintaining personal and environmental hygiene can go a long way in keeping people healthy and free from illness.
How To Prevent Spread Of Contamination In University Campus
There is always a chance of spreading contaminated diseases, irrespective of how hard you try to contain them. However, you can utilize a few steps to prevent contamination diseases from spreading on your university campus.
1. Spread Awareness About Importance Of Cleanliness
The first step to prevent the spread of contamination diseases is to educate and make your audience – university students, teachers, and staff – aware about the necessity of cleanliness.
In universities, most students and teachers live on the campus all through their tenure. If the area they live in is not clean, it could very easily lead to the hotspot of infections and reduced productivity all-round. Organizations with a professional outlook towards facility management have a mission of spreading awareness about cleanliness. Universities need to join hands with such organizations to conduct regular seminars and workshops about cleaning and its importance.
Something as simple as throwing away their food or other waste into dustbins can aid in keeping the campus clean. Even a single instance of infection could bring down a considerable number of people down. After all, prevention is better than cure. It is better to prevent infection from taking hold than suffer through the recovery period.
2. Inculcate The Habit Of Washing Hands Regularly
Although a basic hygiene necessity, it is surprising how often people forget to wash their hands. Germs can spread quite quickly through dirty fingers, primarily via food. Going to the bathroom, using common facilities around the university, and many other communal facilities could easily spread infections among the university students and the faculty and staff.
University management should hang posters or placards all around, urging everyone to wash their hands regularly. There can also be sanitizers and sinks stationed discreetly all around the campus to ensure that everyone has access to facilities to clean their hands. Additionally, you can attach sanitizing stations outside bathrooms to ensure clean hands after using bathrooms.
Washrooms are a melting pot of bacteria, fungi, and myriad viruses that can ruin students’ health if not dealt with adequately. Since it is impossible to know if anyone is healthy or unwell, it can be good practice to use sanitizers immediately after coming out of this space.
Taking professional help in maintenance and upkeep of washroom by utilizing best-in-class practices like usage of quality chemicals, pre-soaked dusters, microfiber cloths etc. have come a long way from mere phenyl-based moping that was done in past.
3. Regularly Clean Kitchens And Canteens
Universities provide their students and staff with canteen services. The kitchen staff prepares foods as per the nutritional requirements of its patrons. The kitchen is prepared using raw meat, seafood, uncooked flour, and eggs. If the surface is not cleaned after using these uncooked items, it can contaminate cooked foods and lead to infection among the canteen-goers.
Educating canteen and kitchen workers about maintaining cleanliness in their workspace and clean up after themselves is a crucial step towards this. Kitchen workers should also maintain basic personal hygiene like tying up their hair, wearing gloves, masks, etc.
Additionally, a regular audit of the kitchen and entire staff is very much required to keep them in proper check-balance form.
4. Monitor Health of Staff In Kitchens And Canteens
The health of all kitchen workers and staff that work in canteens needs to be monitored frequently. Often, a mild fever or a mild cold could start something more dangerous and infectious. Even a single sick person could infect a large number of people on the university campus. Most illnesses usually spread through food. If any of the kitchen staff is unwell and infects the food, it could lead to everyone falling sick.
It is on the university management to responsibly ensure that the health of the kitchen and canteen staff is checked regularly. Temperature checks at the time of entry, exit, and during the day, providing the staff with necessities to take care of themselves in case of sudden illnesses, etc., can help prevent the spread of infections.
Conclusion
It is possible to protect the university campus from harmful infections. First, however, everyone at the university needs to pitch in to help clean and maintain hygiene.
The awareness of a clean environment and hygiene among the people at the university – students, teachers, and other workers can help keep the campus clean. Arranging for dustbins and sanitization stations at regular intervals can help slow down the spread and eventually eliminate the spread of infections among people on the campus.
The mandates laid down by the university management regarding neatness and hygiene in the campus need to be enforced in full to see the full effects.
No matter how mild an infection starts off as, if proper, hygienic care is not taken, it could lead to severe illnesses, even potentially reduce one’s quality of life forever. It is mandatory that universities keep their environment as conducive to physical well-being as it is to intellectual development.
