The Difference Disinfecting Makes
Cold and flu season affects thousands every year, but it tends to hit school districts especially hard. The reason? Young students are not always the most diligent when it comes to maintaining hand hygiene, which makes it easy for germs and bacteria to spread from person to person.
Aside from proper hand washing, regularly cleaning and disinfecting high touch points is another great way to help reduce the spread of bacteria and infection. The problem is that manually cleaning and disinfecting high touch surfaces in a single school would take hours, (let’s not even think about how long it would take to do an entire school district!)
A Case Study in Disinfection
A US school district recently conducted a study to find out just how much of a difference proper disinfection of school surfaces can make in keeping absenteeism rates low. To do this, the district used the Clorox® Total 360® system throughout the school year on common touch points, comparing absenteeism rates and bacteria levels before and after treatment.
The Results
Daily use of the system over the course of a school year resulted in a 14 per cent decrease in the average absenteeism rate. In December, during peak flu season, the average absenteeism rate decreased by 53 per cent. Using the system during illness spikes also helped to reduce rates quickly, and students returned to school after a few days. Environmental swabbing also showed a significant decrease in total bacteria on common touch points.
After conducting this study, one thing was clear: using the Clorox® Total 360® helped to eliminate the environment as a source of infection in the school district. You can check out this recent feature in Forbes magazine to learn more about the results, or click here to download the case study.