Nurse demonstrates germs on hands BETHESDA, Md., July 12 (UPI) -- This may be old hat for food service industry workers, but a U.S. hospital has demonstrated how dirty and germy hands can be, even after washing. The National Institutes of Health's Clinical Center, its research hospital, had a Hand Hygiene Awareness Day -- a kind of hand-washing health fair. Research nurse Amina Oughourli did a demonstration in which she got to see what she missed after she washed her hands in a slip-shod way. "What showed up was a kind of gunk glow-in-the-dark," Oughourli said in a statement. I did the dark light simulation with the dirt, and it was pretty gruesome, so I'm going to be washing my hands pretty vigilantly -- even more so than I was before. There are an estimated 2.5 million hospital-acquired infections each year -- some are fatal and are counted among the estimated 100,000 deaths from preventable hospital errors each year. Better hand washing is often considered "step 1," in reducing infections. Experts suggest a good 20 seconds of hand-washing with warm water and soap can do wonders to help stop the spread of pathogens that cause infections, Oughourli said.