Monday, Oct 14, 2013
Dubai: Lathering up when washing your hands can save lives is the message on Global Handwashing Day, which will be marked on Tuesday.
The worldwide campaign aims to motivate and mobilise millions to support a culture of handwashing with soap in order to combat diarrhoea and acute respiratory infections, which take the lives of millions of children in developing countries every year. Together these infections are responsible for the majority of all child deaths.
Yet despite its lifesaving potential, handwashing with soap is seldom practiced.
Globally, handwashing etiquette continues to focus on children in line with the Millennium Development Goal of reducing deaths among children under the age of five by two-thirds by 2015.
In the UAE, health education programmes in schools focus on hand hygiene.
The Global Handwashing Day campaign refers to the ‘under-five’ age group as powerful agents for changing behaviour like handwashing with soap in their communities. Diana Grobler, Director of Nursing at Mediclinic Welcare Hospital, told Gulf News: “Teaching children hand hygiene at an early age when they are most receptive is integral to instilling good life-long behaviour. Not washing hands with soap can lead to a host of infections, including gastrointestinal infections and respiratory.”
Grobler explained that teaching kids hand hygiene should be have an edutainment approach. “It could be a song or an activity — as long as handwashing is promoted as an enjoyable activity, children will adopt it. Parents too should set a good example.”
In a media statement, Christina Doublichevitche, Nutrition and Health Manager, Unilever-North Africa and Middle East, said: “Handwashing with soap is one of the most effective and low-cost ways to prevent diseases like pneumonia and diarrhoea, which are responsible for the deaths of two million children under five every year.”
Unilever’s health and hygiene campaign kicked off in the region in 2010, where 100,000 children were reached in the UAE, Oman and Kuwait. In the UAE alone, Unilever has covered 136 schools so far.
By Carolina DSouza Staff Reporter
Gulf News 2013. All rights reserved.
