Global Handwashing Day: Clean hands for all




We all have habits. Good habits. Bad habits. As adults and as children. We caution the young ones on resisting bad habits and embracing the good ones, while we, ourselves, may still have our questionable routines hovering. Children, like sponges, soak in all that they see us do.
Let me illustrate with a story. A boy is playing in the park. He uses the swing, fingers curling around the swing-chain. He laughs cheekily as he oscillates rhythmically forward and backward, his hands holding tightly to the support-chain. He later comes off the swing and rushes for an apple. Munching gleefully as he relishes each bite. The next day, he suffers food poisoning. A habit of washing his hands before eating could have saved him from the agony caused by ingesting pathogens.
Other seemingly innocent actions such as touching surfaces and rubbing the eyes, easing an itch by scratching, holding objects and so on, spread diseases and infections faster than we can imagine. It was even once noted that more women died after childbirth due to medical practitioners not washing their hands before attending to the women.
Skin infections, worm infestation, diarrhoea, chicken pox and many more illnesses can be spread by unwashed and/or dirty hands. Children are more prone to these diseases. Their adventurous and inquisitive nature has them playing in odd places; touching everything to figure out what it is; picking strange objects from the floor; or even putting curious morsels in their mouths.  According to the World Bank, 67% of deaths in Nigeria are as a result of communicable diseases. About 60,000 children under the age of five in Nigeria die of diarrhoea. According to WaterAid’s report in 2018, about 150,000 deaths in Nigeria were caused by improper handwashing and lack of simple hygiene yearly.


Read more in the Punch Newspaper.

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