GLOBAL HANDWASHING DAY - Schoolchildren enact a life-saving lesson learnt

20 October, 2008 - Your grandparents may boast of long life without washing their hands with soap but doing so with rice but, around the world, about 3.5 million children die every year from diarrhoeal disease and pneumonia, which could have been prevented by washing hands with soap and water.

This was the message the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) spread as they encouraged schoolchildren from Thimphu to wash their hands with soap as Bhutan joined over 70 nations to celebrate Global Handwashing Day on October 15.

“By washing hands with soap, families and communities can help reduce child morbidity rates from diarrhoeal diseases by almost 50 percent,” said a press release from UNICEF.

In Bhutan, 21 percent of all under-five deaths are caused by pneumonia, followed by diarrhoea at 19 percent, according to the annual health bulletin 2008. “This can be reduced if children wash their hands with soap and running water,” said a UNICEF official.

Last year, 64,100 diarrhoea cases and 13,633 pneumonia ones was recorded in Bhutan. In 2006, 16 children died of diarrhoea and 59 of pneumonia.

The day focused on students and schools, where children could act as agents to educate their families and communities in hand washing with soap after learning its importance.

“Teachers have the responsibility to educate their students for them to practise and also teach their parents,” said a parent, escorting her children to the celebration.

The representative of UNICEF in Bhutan, Dr Gepke Hingst, told students about the importance of washing hands with soaps after toilet and before eating to improve health, survival and reduce morbidity of young children. “Be smarter and wash your hands with soap,” she said, showing a bar of soap to the students.

Hand washing was advisable to practise at critical moments like before eating or preparing food, after using the toilet and after work or play.

However, the incidence of hand washing around the world is low and the observed rates of hand washing with soap at critical moments range from zero to 34 percent, according to the World Health Organisation.

A recent study on “Maternal and birth attendant, hand washing and neonatal mortality in Southern Nepal” shows that hand washing with soap by birth attendants and mothers significantly increase new born survival rates by up to 44 percent.