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They lurk on the kitchen sponge, your computer keyboard and the dirty laundry. Flush the toilet and they become airborne. Strangers leave them behind on airplanes, gas pumps, shopping carts, coffeeshop counters and elevator buttons. Your desktop, office microwave handles, and the exercise bike at the gym are covered with them. Don't even think about the toys at day-care centers or the kids' playground equipment.
Germs -- the microscopic bacteria, viruses, fungi and protozoa that can cause disease -- cling to the most common surfaces and then hitch a ride on our hands. As swine flu spreads from person to person around the world, it is most often being transmitted by coughing or sneezing, but it can also infect people who touch something with flu virus on it and then touch their mouth or nose, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warns. And like an unwelcome house guest, a flu virus can hang around for days.
No wonder germophobes -- including me -- are on high alert, viewing every surface as a potentially lethal petri dish. We're using our elbows to push elevator buttons, forgoing the handshake and social kiss for the fist bump, and fanatically disinfecting everything in sight. Sales of alcohol-based hand sanitizers were up nearly 17% as of the first week of September compared to the same period last year, according to Chicago-based research firm Information Resources. And marketers are taking full advantage of our paranoia, introducing anti-bacterial dishwasher-safe keyboards, machine-washable leather shoes, germ-resistant paper file folders and even hands-free communion wafer dispensers for churches.
But how vulnerable are we to the sea of germs swirling around us? Our immune system protects us from most of them, and in some spots that harbor germs, like household drains, the risk of transfer is low. Experts say there's no reason to panic -- even though there may be good reasons to be grossed out, since the spread of germs is often linked to poor bathroom hygiene and bacteria from human waste.
'We take in humongous amounts of live organisms every day, and we are all routinely covered in fecal organisms,' says Michael Bell, associate director for infection control at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Division of Healthcare Quality Promotion. 'It's a testament to our body's own defenses -- if they routinely made us ill, none of us would have a chance.'
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