key: cord-255946-bcuivyku
authors: Kulkarni, Prashanth; Kodad, Shruthi; Mahadevappa, Manjappa
title: Covid‐19 and Namaste
date: 2020-04-21
journal: Influenza Other Respir Viruses
DOI: 10.1111/irv.12746
sha: 
doc_id: 255946
cord_uid: bcuivyku

nan

To the Editor-in-Chief

The novel coronavirus (SARSCoV-2) has emerged as a major pandemic stretching the healthcare resources of most countries of the world. In this context, it is imperative that social distancing and good hand hygiene is practised to stem the transmission of this highly con- Alternatively, other non-physical greeting forms can be explored like Namaste, which is used in Indian subcontinent since hundreds of years to greet people with folded hands, while maintaining a fair distance from each other [ Figure 1 ]. An individual in addition to saying "Namaste" presses his hands together in front of the chest and respectfully greets the other person. This form of greeting does not involve any physical touch between individuals and gives a sense of parity to all the parties. 3 In addition to following general principles of meticulous hand washing, rapid transmission of infections both in hospitals and the community can be overcome by adopting the no-touch salutation Namaste and other such forms like bowing the head as done in some Asian countries.

World Health Organization

Guidelines on Hand Hygiene in Health Care

Namaste or handshake: time to ponder