The guiding vision of Global Hand-washing Day is a local and global culture of hand-washing with soap. Although people around the world wash their hands with water, very few wash their hands with soap at critical moments (for example, after using the toilet, while cleaning a child, and before handling food).
Health experts say hand-washing with soap is among the most effective and inexpensive ways to prevent diarrheal diseases and pneumonia, which together are responsible for the majority of child deaths. Every year, more than 3.5 million children according to UNICEF, do not live to celebrate their fifth birthday because of diarrhea and pneumonia. Yet, despite its lifesaving potential, hand-washing with soap is seldom practiced and not always easy to promote.
As the Northern Region of Ghana takes its turn to launch the 2010 Global Handwashing Day, the people have been asked to adopt good hygienic practices in order to safeguard their health and also avoid the high cost of medical expenses during disease outbreak.
Prince Askia Mohammed, District Chief Executive for Savelugu/Nanton who said this in an address during the launch of this year’s Northern Regional Global Hand Washing Day With Soap at Savelugu recently, bemoaned the parental neglect of not educating children on the dangers associated with dirt and asked parents to wake up from the slumber.
According to him, dirt breeds chronic diseases such as cholera, diarrhea and malaria which always affect family budgets.
The Savelugu/Nanton DCE therefore called on parents and teachers at the basic school level in the Northern Region to inculcate in the younger generation the culture of good hygienic practices.
He hinted that all food vendors, caterers and cooks working under the Ghana School Feeding Programme (GSFP) in the Savelugu-Nanton District have undergone several screening exercises to ensure that they are hygienic or free from contagious diseases that can easily be transferred to pupils.
Prince Mohammed pledged the Assembly’s commitment to intensify its campaign on good hygienic practices in the area towards improving the health needs of the people.
Mr. Askia commended the United Nation’s International Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the Community Water and Sanitation Agency (CWSA) as well as World Vision for providing 30 hand washing basins and detergents towards that drive.
Meanwhile, the challenge is to transform hand-washing with soap from an abstract good idea into an automatic behaviour performed in homes, schools, and communities worldwide. Turning hand-washing with soap before eating and after using the toilet into an ingrained habit could save more lives than any single vaccine or medical intervention, cutting deaths from diarrhea by almost half and deaths from acute respiratory infections by one-quarter, according to health experts.
More hand-washing with soap would make a significant contribution to meeting the Millennium Development Goal of reducing deaths among children under the age of five by two-thirds by 2015. Global Hand-washing Day will be the centrepiece of a week of activities that will mobilize millions of people across five continents to wash their hands with soap.
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