Maintenance of personal and public hygiene

The WHO defines hygiene as the conditions and practices that help maintain health and prevent the spread of disease. Personal hygiene covers keeping the body clean — bathing, hand-washing, trimming nails, wearing clean clothes — as well as keeping home and workplace surfaces, toilets and bathrooms clean and free of pathogens.

Public hygiene matters just as much: public spaces are full of contamination, and many people fail to wash their hands before eating or after using the restroom, or sneeze without covering their face, spreading infection through touched surfaces and shared air. Diseases such as typhoid, amoebiasis and ascariasis spread specifically through contaminated food and water, which is why food and water hygiene is emphasized alongside personal cleanliness. …