Re-opening hairdressing salons, barber shops and gyms following COVID-19 lockdown: reducing risks from Legionella species through successful domestic steam disinfection of showerheads

Given the importance of disinfecting showerheads from Legionella species and the lack of instructions as to how to successfully achieve this, the aim of this study was to examine the ability of domestic steam disinfection to successfully disinfect showerheads from Legionella species. Steam disinfection of Legionella pneumophila [n=3; L. pneumophila serogroup 2–15 (wildtype environmental water isolate); L. pneumophila serogroup 1 NCTC11192 (reference strain); L. pneumophila serogroup 1 (wildtype environmental water isolate)], L. erythra (wildtype environmental water isolate) and L. bozemanii CRM11368M (reference strain) were examined in this study. Steam disinfection employing a baby bottle steam disinfector device eradicated all Legionella organisms tested. Steam disinfection, when performed properly under the manufacturer’s instructions, offers a relatively inexpensive, simple, versatile and widely available technology for the elimination of Legionella species from contaminated showerheads. We therefore advocate the employment of such devices to regularly disinfect showerheads and shower tubing in hairdressing salons, barber shops and gyms, as a critical control in the elimination of these organisms from these sources, thereby enhancing customer/client/staff safety.

Workplace Hygiene Practice among Saloon Workers in Bangladesh Army

Introduction: In Bangladesh like any other developing country, saloon is the unique place for transmission of some communicable diseases. Objectives: To explore the level of knowledge, attitude and practices regarding hygienic and cleanliness among saloon workers of Bangladesh Army. Materials and Methods: This descriptive cross-sectional study was carried out in different barber shops of army units in Dhaka cantonment during the month of May 2011. Data were collected from 115 saloon worker by structured questionnaire through face to face interview. Results: Mean age of 115 respondents’ was 22.65±5.8 years whereas 76% of the respondents have less than 5 years of service. Their monthly income was less than 8000 taka and 70.4% had only primary education. About 77% washed linen used for wrapping twice a week and 16.5% did it in alternate day. About 89.5% had awareness and knowledge of transmission of skin diseases through unclean comb, but only 2.6% did not have any knowledge regarding this matter. In case of disease spread through unclean handle of blade/khur majority 60% respondents were aware about skin disease but only 12% were aware about AIDS and 16.5% were aware about jaundice. Majority (90%) found using antiseptic solution to clean used shaving brush /handle of razors. No respondent clean their hand before providing service to each customer and none used fresh linen for each customer rather 1 linen for every 10-12 customer on average. Conclusion: The study revealed that majority of the saloon workers were either illiterate or had only primary plus level education with poor socio economic background. Despite the knowledge and practice of workplace hygiene among the saloon workers are quite satisfactory levels even though there are areas for further improvement. Journal of Armed Forces Medical College Bangladesh Vol.15 (1) 2019: 79-80

Męskość z brodą. Podróż do świata barberów i brodaczy

Today’s men are faced with ever growing number of expectations, especially related to their looks. To meet those expectations, some men decided to combine two things: grooming and the aura of masculinity. The foregoing combination yielded the popular parlours called “barber shops” with all the accompanying societal and media atmosphere. Moreover, it has appeared that beard, being a historically symbolic part of person’s looks, in this day and age may be the glue of sexually homogenous communities/community characterised by retrotopia (Zygmunt Bauman’s term). The said communities make it possible for men to create powerful brotherly bonds but, at the same time, are potentially the spaces of regression in terms of women’s and other dominated groups’ emancipation.

Conclusion

Participants in the discourse on AMBS are best situated to assess their own and others’ experiential claims within a specific place and as part of a particular process of educational advocacy. The former is comprised of barber shops, laundromats, libraries, and other accessible, decentralized, community-based arenas that have a history of incubating anti-racist and other politics of resistance. The latter emphasizes the importance of public schools while challenging the quality of such schools available to black children. Such advocacy is ultimately successful when it abides by the two-fold norm that good public schools foster black self-determination in the face of intersecting oppression and also prepare black children of all genders to continually evaluate what life in a democratic polity looks like.

VIRAL MARKERS

Objectives: To know the prevalence and predisposing risk factors of HBVand HCV in patients undergoing ocular surgery. Study Design: Descriptive study. Setting:Department of Ophthalmology Khyber Medical University Institute of Medical Sciences / K.D.ATeaching Hospital Kohat. Period: January 2015 to December 2016. Materials and Methods: Alladmitted patients in eye ward for surgery. Informed consent was taken from patients. Detailedhistory including surgical, medical treatment, blood transfusion and other relevant was taken. Allthose patients who were not previously diagnosed as HBV and HCV positive were included in thestudy. ICT method was used for screening. Those who were positive with ICT were confirmed byEliza test. Eliza negative patients were excluded. During these two years total 2547 patients withmean age of 63.4 years were admitted in eye ward. Results: By ICT method 43(1.68%) patientswere HBC positive in which 24(55.81%) were male and19(44.18%) were female. 121(4.75%)patients were HCV positive, out of them 44(36.36%) were male and 77(63.63%) were female.All positive patients were confirmed by ELIZA test. Regarding predisposing risk factors. in HBVpositive, 13(30.23%) patients had history of major surgical procedure, 9(20.93%) patients haddental extraction, 6(13.95%) had blood transfusion, 6(13. 95%) had quackery injection with nondisposable syringes, 2(4.65%) patients had routine face and armpit shave in barber shops andno significant history in 7(16.27%) patients. In HCV positive, 29(23.96%) patients had history ofmajor surgical procedure, 22(18.18%) patients had blood transfusion, 18(14.87%) patients haddental extraction, 16 (13.22%) patients had history of injection by quack using non disposablesyringe, 13(10.74%)had routine face and armpit shave in barber shops and 23(19.00%) patientshad no significant history. Conclusion: HBV and HCV are common among community. HCV ismore prevalent as compared to HBV. Every patient should be screened before surgery.

Resiliency: It Goes Beyond the Hair

In the January article of The Guardian News ‘How Hurricane Maria forced Puerto Ricans to change their hair’, author Norbert Figueroa reflects on the devastating effects of the category four storm in the US territory. Besides the aftermath caused by floodwaters, massive electric shortage, and structural damages, Figueroa revealed how Hurricane Maria forced adaptations to everyday life, including the way Puerto Ricans styled their hair. Extreme conditions of heat and humidity, exacerbated by the lack of electric power, lead to the acceptance of natural hairdos, to the creation of sidewalk barber shops, and to the formalization of an underground economy where haircuts in the form of currency, were exchanged for power generators. Figueroa’s simple but complex observation is critical in the revelation of creative self-organizing assemblages at the face of concealed realities. If the simple act of hair restructuring convokes taxonomical categorizations, ingenious adaptabilities, spatial re-conceptualizations, and the creation of new underground economies, why isn’t architecture transcending its heteronomous condition to achieve ‘resilient’ solutions? If resilience is defined as ‘the ability of objects to spring back into shape’ after being deformed,’ does it exclude the notion of ‘predictability’? This paper does not bring to the fore the discursivity that the resilient discourse entails, but it is an attempt to question its interpretations and trivial meanings within a ‘utopian’ model that fails to come to terms with the constitution of the physical realm.