Global Handwashing Day focuses on disease prevention
September 23rd 2008 Technical Concepts – provider of touch free automated soap and hand sanitizer dispensing systems – has drawn attention to the first-ever Global Handwashing Day on the 15 October 2008. It aims to highlight the need for proper hygiene practices across the world and raise awareness that hand washing with soap is a powerful public health intervention.
Millions of school children across 20 countries and 5 continents will participate in educational activities to raise awareness and promote behaviour change. Diarrhoea kills over 2 million children annually, making it the second leading cause of death in children. Simple hand washing with soap can prevent this and other diseases such as eye infections, stomach worms, SARS, and AVIAN flu, that impact families in developing countries.
The Global Hand Washing Day campaign is supported by public and private bodies including UNICEF; USAID, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Water and Sanitation Program. It states, “When coupled with educational initiatives, hand washing with soap is one of the world’s most cost-effective preventative health interventions and has been proven to reduce the risk of not only diarrhoea but also some of its more severe manifestations, such as cholera and dysentery, by 48-59%.”
Public officials, school teachers and parents will all join together on Global Hand Washing Day to call for proper hand washing practices. The basics needed to make hand washing a habit, particularly in children are; (1) Make soap readily available and easy to use, (2) Continuous encouragement of regular and thorough cleaning, (3) Soap should be gentle to the skin and easy to rinse off, (4) Soap needs to be cost effective.
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