In collaboration with the Ministry of Municipal and Rural Affairs and a local establishment for hairdressing tools, Jeddah Mayoralty has launched the second awareness campaign about barbershop health hazards under the name “An ounce of prevention is better than a cure”. The campaign aims to limit the spread of infectious blood diseases like HIV (AIDS) and hepatitis. The mayoralty campaign has been launched as a result of recommendations of the healthy hairdressing workshops which were held last November under the name “Healthy barbershop hairdressing tools, guides and behavior”. “Every barbershop must use disposable razor blades, gloves, and towels. In addition, the hairdresser must wear a medical facemask and clean hairdressing tools with disinfectant substances, such as chlorine, iodine and ammonia,” said Dr. Hani Abu Rass, undersecretary of services in the Jeddah municipality. One recommendation of the healthy hairdressing workshops was that a barbershop should only provide hairdressing services and should not attempt to provide beauty treatments, such as facials with unauthorized creams and herbs which can have a negative effect on the skin. It was also recommended that barbershops use UV (ultraviolet radiation) sterilization at least one hour per day in order to kill germs on hairdressing tools. “Using instruments contaminated with blood or body fluids, touching contaminated surfaces, coughing and sneezing are common ways of transmitting diseases. In barbershops and beauty salons diseases can be transmitted by razors, tweezers, scissors, towels, blankets, contaminated liquids and creams, when these items are used in an unsafe way,” Dr. Basher Abu Najem, general manager of licensing and control of trade in Jeddah municipality told Saudi Gazette. The municipality has distributed brochures and flyers to barbershops in Jeddah in order to increase awareness of the importance of good hygiene and to describe the appropriate means of sterilizing hairdressing tools by either UV radiation or chemical cleaners.
