Global Handwashing Day

Global Handwashing Day
Logo used for Global Handwashing Day around the world. Shown in the image are water, soap, and hand.
Celebrations "Our hands, our future!"
Date 15 October
Next time 15 October 2019 (2019-10-15)
Frequency annual
First time 15 October 2008
Related to Menstrual hygiene day

Global Handwashing Day (GHD) is a campaign to motivate and mobilize people around the world to improve their handwashing habits. Washing hands at critical points during the day and washing with soap are both important.

Global Handwashing Day occurs on 15 October of each year. The global campaign is dedicated to raising awareness of handwashing with soap as a key factor in disease prevention.[1] Respiratory and intestinal diseases can be reduced by 25-50%.

Implementation and management

The Global Handwashing Partnership (GHP) (formerly called "Public Private Partnership for Handwashing" (PPPHW)) established Global Handwashing Day in 2008 as a way to promote a global and local vision of handwashing with soap.[2]

Steering Committee members of the GHP include Colgate-Palmolive; FHI 360; The London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine; Procter & Gamble; UNICEF; Unilever; University at Buffalo; USAID; the Water and Sanitation Programme at the World Bank; and the Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council.[3]

Continued research on handwashing habits and practices is commissioned in conjunction with GHD. In 2011, Svenska Cellulosa Aktiebolaget (SCA), sponsored a study to assess the handwashing habits of American and Canadian adults, finding that many were not using soap when washing their hands.[4]

Aims

The aims of Global Handwashing Day are to:[2]

  • Foster and support a general culture of handwashing with soap in all societies
  • Shine a spotlight on the state of handwashing in each country
  • Raise awareness about the benefits of handwashing with soap.

Activities

Each year, over 200 million people celebrate Global Handwashing Day.[5]

Examples

  • On 15 October 2014, Madhya Pradesh won the Guinness World Record for the most massive handwashing program.[6] There were 1,276,425 children in 51 different districts participating.[6]
  • Sometimes, groups choose to celebrate GHD on other dates than 15 October. In Ethiopia, 300 people celebrated Global Handwashing Day in Addis Ababa on 1 November in 2013.[7]
  • On 15 October 2015, Lupok Central Elementary School, Guiuan Eastern Samar, Philippines celebrated the Global Handwashing Day by doing the proper handwashing before starting classes.

History

Global Handwashing Day was initiated by the Global Handwashing Partnership (GHP) in August 2008 at the annual World Water Week in Stockholm, Sweden.[8] This means that the first Global Handwashing Day took place on 15 October 2008. The date was appointed by the UN General Assembly. The year 2008 was also the International Year of Sanitation.[9] The founding bodies in 2008 included: FHI360 (a nonprofit human development organization based in the US),[10] US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Procter & Gamble, UNICEF, Unilever, World Bank Water & Sanitation Program and the United States Agency for International Development.

Themes

  • The focus for Global Handwashing Day's inaugural year in 2008 was school children. In that year, the members pledged to get the maximum number of school children handwashing with soap in more than 70 countries. In India in 2008, cricket legend Sachin Tendulkar and his teammates joined an estimated 100 million schoolchildren around the country in lathering up for better health and hygiene as part of the first Global Handwashing Day.[11]
  • In 2014, Global Handwashing Day was used as an opportunity to fight Ebola.[12] In Nigeria, for example, Concern Universal and Carex sponsored events featuring singer Sunny Neji.[13]

Background

Pupils of Lupok Central Elementary School Guiuan Eastern Samar, Philippines during the Global Hand Washing Day Celebration in 2015.
Global Handwashing Day 2008 celebrations with celebrities at City Central School in Cagayan de Oro, Philippines.
Dry run with kids at City Central School in Cagayan de Oro on how to wash hands with soap during Global Handwashing Day 2008 (Philippines)
Global handwashing day celebrations in Indonesia in 2008

The campaign was initiated to reduce childhood mortality rates and related respiratory and diarrheal diseases by introducing simple behavioral changes, such as handwashing with soap. This simple action can reduce the mortality rate of respiratory disease by 25%. Death from diarrheal diseases can be reduced by 50%.[14]

Importance of handwashing

Handwashing with soap is very effective and the least expensive way to prevent diarrhea and acute respiratory infections.[15] Pneumonia, a major ARI (acute respiratory infection), is the number one cause of mortality among children under five years old, killing an estimated 1.8 million children per year. Diarrhea and pneumonia together account for almost 3.5 million child deaths annually.[16] Handwashing with soap is estimated to reduce cases of diarrhea by 30% and respiratory infections by 21% in children under the age of five.[2]

It is important to make handwashing into a habit. Good handwashing with soap before eating and after using the toilet into a regular habit can 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.[17]

Handwashing is usually done together with other sanitation interventions as part of water, sanitation and hygiene WASH programmes.

The Global Handwashing Day helps raise awareness of the importance of washing with soap, but it also makes it fun for children to get involved.[18]

Proper hygiene requires that individuals know the importance of good hygiene and develop the habits to carry it out. There are people with plenty of money but nonetheless, they lack the important habits of timely handwashing with soap, and thereby unknowingly endanger themselves and others around them.[19]

Peer influence is significant to seeing increased handwashing among students. In a study conducted in Kenya, researchers found that students were much more likely to wash their hands when another student is present.[20] Peer influence is only successful, however, when students know that handwashing is a desirable action.

The World Health Organization (WHO) celebrates a World Hand Hygiene Day on 5 May. In 2018 the theme was prevention of sepsis in health care.[21] The theme of the year before was to combat antibiotic resistance (AMR).[22]

See also

References

  1. ↑ Rai, Frank (12 August 2009). "Lae Marks Global Handwashing Day". Post-Courier (Papua New Guinea). Retrieved 24 July 2015 – via Newspaper Source – EBSCO.
  2. 1 2 3 "Global Handwashing Day". MMWR. Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. 61 (40): 821. 12 October 2012. Retrieved 24 July 2015. (Subscription required (help)).
  3. ↑ "The Global Handwashing Partnership". globalhandwashing.org.
  4. ↑ "New Research Reveals Poor Handwashing Practices". Business Wire. 14 October 2011. Retrieved 10 August 2015 – via Regional Business News – EBSCOhost.
  5. ↑ "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 8 February 2015. Retrieved 10 August 2015.
  6. 1 2 "MP Creates World Record for Mass Handwashing Initiative; Guinness Book Acknowledges Feat". Hindustan Times. 3 July 2015. Retrieved 23 July 2015.
  7. ↑ Bizuwork, Demissew (4 November 2013). "Ethiopia Celebrates Global Handwashing Day". UNICEF Ethiopia. Retrieved 24 July 2015.
  8. ↑ "The Global Public Private Partnership for Handwashing – Our History". The Global Public Private Partnership for Handwashing. Retrieved 18 December 2015.
  9. ↑ "Global Handwashing Day". World Health Organization. 15 October 2008. Retrieved 24 July 2015.
  10. ↑ "fhi360 About Us". fhi360. Retrieved 11 August 2015.
  11. ↑ Walker, Angela (16 October 2008). "Star Cricketer Sachin Tendulkar Promotes Handwashing in India". UNICEF. Retrieved 24 July 2015.
  12. ↑ "Handwashing One Important Tool in the Ebola Fight". UNICEF. 15 October 2014. Retrieved 10 August 2015.
  13. ↑ "Global Handwashing Day: Handwashing Saves Lives". Concern Universal Nigeria. Archived from the original on 8 February 2015. Retrieved 10 August 2015.
  14. ↑ Curtis, Val; Cairncross, Sandy (May 2003). "Effect of washing hands with soap on diarrhoea risk in the community: a systematic review". The Lancet Infectious Diseases. 3 (5): 275–281. doi:10.1016/S1473-3099(03)00606-6. PMID 12726975.
  15. ↑ "MOH Celebrates Global Handwashing Day". Arabia 2000. 15 October 2009. Retrieved 24 July 2015 – via Newspaper Source – EBSCO.
  16. ↑ "The State of the World's Children 2008. Child Survival. UNICEF" (PDF).
  17. ↑ Larsen, Linda (15 October 2013). "Today is Global Handwashing Day". Food Poisoning Bulletin. Retrieved 24 July 2015.
  18. ↑ Sawyer, Kem Knapp (10 October 2011). "Getting All Lathered Up". The Washington Post. Retrieved 24 July 2015 – via Regional Business News – EBSCO.
  19. ↑ Jeffrey Sachs; Myriam Sidibe (15 October 2014). "Global Handwashing Day in the Time of Ebola". Huffington Post.
  20. ↑ Pickering, Amy J.; Blum, Annalise G.; Breiman, Robert F.; Ram, Pavani K.; Davis, Jennifer (27 March 2014). "Video Surveillance Captures Student Hand Hygiene Behavior, Reactivity to Observation, and Peer Influence in Kenyan Primary Schools". PLoS ONE. 9 (3): e92571. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0092571. PMC 3968003. PMID 24676389.
  21. ↑ "Infection prevention and control". World Health Organization. Retrieved 4 May 2018.
  22. ↑ "Infection prevention and control". World Health Organization. Retrieved 4 May 2018.
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