Intensified hand-hygiene campaign including soap-and-water wash may prevent acute infections in office workers, as shown by a recognized-exposure -adjusted analysis of a randomized trial

Table 1 Demographic data of the healthy volunteers in the trial

Trial arm^a	Number of reporting participants		Gender ^b		Age (years)
Trial arm^a	Initially	Finally^c	Females	Males	Mean (SD^d)	Range
Water and soap	257	297	202	80	45.1 (10.2)	22 – 64
Alcohol hand rub	202	238	170	53	42.7 (10.1)	20 - 63
Control	224	230	173	61	42.9 (11.1)	21 – 62

^aParticipants in the two intervention arms received instructions for transmission-limiting behavior when sneezing or coughing and for frequent hand cleansing with the indicated method
^bA few participants did not give this information (not obligatory according to the protocol)
^cTotal number of participants providing data for one or more follow-up week (including those recruited after the onset of the trial)
^dSD, standard deviation

ISSN: 1471-2334