Health Risks of Wearing Used Clothes

You see them in most markets, though some more than others, dealers and buyers of used clothes transacting businesses; exchanging cash for used clothes from the united states, united kingdom, Italy and other developed countries – the trade is so widespread you can never miss it; everybody want high quality outfits but most people cannot afford the prices they come for at regular boutiques. From middle-class office workers to stark illiterates, the customers-base has no definite demography.

One can write epistles on the economic downturns that push people into patronizing clothes previously used by people they have no idea about, and how government policies have ruined the textile industry in Nigeria but that is not the subject of this article. The subject of this article is the health risks associated with wearing used clothes.

Many human diseases, especially the sexually transmitted diseases, are transmitted through body fluids (blood, sweat, urine, semen, vaginal discharge and so on) and the causative organisms implicated in a lot of these diseases have been isolated in clothes of people with these diseases.

Infections such as vaginal and skin candidiasis, scabies, ring worm, body lice, chicken pox, gonorrhea, syphilis and hepatitis (types A, B, C, D and G) can be transmitted through clothes previously used by infected persons. The risk is even more if the clothes are not properly washed, disinfected and ironed before use. The category of clothing that are more culpable are underwear which most people do not iron before use do to the material with they are made  which does not allow them to withstand that much heat.

Washing with regular detergents may not be enough to get rid of some of these bacteria and the eggs of some parasitic organisms which are naturally conditioned to withstand harsh conditions for survival; for these, strong reagents are sometimes needed to get rid of them and you will need to iron them after to be double sure.

If you are buying these materials, ensure that you use antiseptics to disinfect them, line them out in the sun and iron them before use.

For underwear that cannot be ironed directly, you can do “shadow ironing” – place a material on the underwear when it is still a little bit wet and then “iron-dry” it; better still, avoid buying such materials entirely!

Another common practice is trying on materials that you want to buy so see if it fit – desists from this practice and if you must, always try them on without taking your clothes off – by this, you avoid them getting in contact with your skin before you disinfect and iron them.

Bottom line: Buy new clothes if you can, and if you can’t, treat them properly before use.