Kaivac Inc. Didn’t You Forget Something? Effective cleaning plays a significant role in preventing the spread of infection. O One of the seminars at a recent ISSA/ INTERCLEAN North America trade show dealt with the transmission of infection in the workplace. A knowledgeable speaker told attend-ees that Americans suffer from more than one billion colds each year, costing U.S. businesses nearly $17 billion annually in wages and lost worker productivity. Worse, seasonal influenza costs more than $37 billion annually and results in more than $10 billion in lost worker pro-ductivity. However, this is just the monetary dam-age. Even more sobering, according to the presenter, were these facts specifically about seasonal influenza: ■ Each year, five to 20 percent of Americans come down with the flu ■ Of these, more than 200,000 are hospitalized and 36,000 die from flu-related diseases ■ The elderly, pregnant women and children are at greatest risk. The presenter then discussed how colds and the flu are spread and provided a variety of ways to prevent their trans-mission. These included everything from proper handwashing to coughing or sneezing into the upper bend of the arm instead of using the hands to cover the nose and mouth. The seminar provided a great deal of useful information; however, during the question-and-answer period, one of the attendees wondered whether the pre-senter had forgotten something. “I’m a little surprised that there was not greater discussion on the role cleaning plays in preventing the spread of disease, specifically colds and the flu,” the audi-ence member said. Preventing Infection Through Cleaning The presenter agreed that hygienic clean-ing plays a crucial role in preventing the spread of disease; but, in this case, this attendee may have been more familiar with cleaning’s role in protecting health. The audience member was a writer for the professional cleaning industry and had reported firsthand on how a large school district had used hygienic clean-ing and reduced the number of children contracting flu. According to the writer, an informal 2008 study of school districts in and around St. Louis found that, on average, 15 percent of the children in these dis-tricts were home with the flu at any one time during the flu season — November to April each year. However, one district averaged only five percent absenteeism due to flu during this period. The Rockwood School District could not say definitively why the children in that district weathered the flu season so much better than those in the surrounding districts; however, they indicated they had recently made one significant change in the ways their schools were cleaned. “We transferred from conventional cleaning — mops, buckets, cleaning cloths — to the Kaivac No-Touch Cleaning ® sys-tem,” says Doug Coleman, coordinator of custodial services for the district. Mops and cloths can spread contami-nants just as much as they clean. But, with the No-Touch system, the machine applies cleaning agents to all surfaces to be cleaned and then rinses and vacuums the same areas with the machine’s built-in wet vacuum system. “The below-average illness rate is proba-bly no coincidence,” Coleman adds. “More effective, thorough, hygienic cleaning with the Kaivac system is what has helped keep our students healthier and in school.” CM Circle Product Information no. 152 This content was provided by Kaivac as part of a paid advertisement. For more information, please contact Kaivac at 1-800-287-1136 or www.Kaivac.com. www.cmmonline.com 21
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