Hello; Here is a link to an example of the sort of attitude that many have about hygene issues. At one level it seems innocent that a student shares food with another student. The focus here is a bit more about potential allergy problems but there is also the potential for an exchange of pathogens.
http://www.aol.com/article/2014/09/...ng-grid7|hp-laptop|dl12|sec1_lnk3&pLid=532503
Sharing seems a positive behavior in many settings, but my take is that those who feel the kid is "only trying to be nice" have missed the point. Our routine behaviors, relative to hygene, do not get us into serious trouble most of the time. With pathogens such as ebola and the ever growing ranks of antibiotic resistant infectious agents the problems are very serious.
A local man recently spent over 40 days in a local hospital due to getting a bit of wooden toothpick broken off in his foot. He stepped on the toothpick and a piece broke off. By the time he went to a doctor an opportunistic infection had taken hold. The common antibiotics had little effect. He had to be in the hospital while one of our few remaining effective antibiotics was administered. The antibiotic has such potentially serious (toxic) side effects that his blood had to be monitored each day. Doctors also now seem to understand that these remaining effective antibiotics need to be used with care to slow down the development of antibiotic specific resistant pathogens.
The level of hysteria may well depend on where and when an outbreak occurs. A setting where the infected individuals can be quickly identified and their contacts isolated and monitored for three weeks perhaps being the best chance of controling an outbreak.
