There are many ways that germs and infections can be spread from person to person. Within the work environment, this can be prevented by following the steps below.
Wash Your Hands
Always wash your hands after using the toilet, handling raw meat, blowing your nose/ sneezing, and emptying bins and before preparing food or eating by using soap and water. If you are unable to wash your hands properly with soap and water, use hand sanitiser.
Keep Your Environment Clean
Making sure that surfaces and equipment is sterilised thoroughly is very important. Use hot water, clean cloths and the correct detergents to clean surfaces and equipment.
Person to Person Contact
Infections and germs can be spread through physical contact or a sneeze/cough. If you have the flu, a bad cold or cough, or a sickness bug or any other type of illness/ infection, you should avoid close contact with other people as it can cause germs and infections to spread.
Food
Infections and germs can be spread through all types of food in many different ways. This can be because surfaces may not be cleaned correctly after food has been prepared, cross contamination through food, not preparing raw meats correctly.
Wash your hands after handling raw meatGerms from raw meat can move easily onto your hands, and then onto anything else you touch, such as food that is cooked and ready to eat. This is called cross-contamination.
Some easy steps to help prevent cross-contamination are:
• Always wash your hands after touching raw meat.
• Use separate plates, tongs and containers for cooked and raw meat.
• Never put cooked food on a plate or surface that has had raw meat on it.
• Keep raw meat in a sealed container away from foods that are ready to eat.
• Don’t put raw meat next to cooked or partly cooked meat on the barbecue.
• Don’t put sauce or marinade on cooked food if it has already been used with raw meat.
