Handwashing with soap: Simplest way to curb diseases
Hand washing is still the cheapest, cost- effective and simplest way to curb diarrhoea and other communicable diseases. With the current outbreak of cholera in the country, and Ebola in some countries in the sub-region, it is even more crucial to remind people, once again, about the importance of making this simple process a habit.
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Since its inception in 2008, Global Handwashing Day (GHD) is celebrated on October 15 every year in support of the global campaign to motivate and mobilise millions of people around the world to wash their hands with soap.
Raising awareness
The campaign has been dedicated to raising awareness of handwashing with soap as a positive step to disease prevention. Under the leadership of the Community Water Supply Agency, the lead agency for handwashing with soap, Ghana’s commemoration of the day was dedicated to increasing awareness and appreciation of the importance of handwashing with soap as an effective and affordable way to prevent diarrhoeal diseases and respiratory infections.
Ghana observed the event on the theme “Choose handwashing, choose health”
According to the 2008 Ghana Health Demographic Survey (GHDS), about 26,000 children, under the age of five, are estimated to die annually from diarrhoeal diseases, and for this reason, the country must focus much attention on children and schools, and the need for metropolitan, municipal and district assemblies (MMDAs) to work closely with the Ghana Education Service (GES), the Ministry of Education, teacher associations and students associations to provide clean water and soap for proper handwashing in schools.
Habit of proper handwashing
It is expected that inculcating the habit of proper handwashing in school children would enable them to replicate the practice everywhere they find themselves — homes, churches, wedding ceremonies and other public events.
However, visits to some selected schools in the Ashanti Region by members of the Ashanti Regional Chapter of the Ghana Water and Sanitation Journalists Network (GWJN) indicated that a number of schools in the Kumasi Metropolis lacked water and soap to be used by the students and pupils to wash their hands.
There were no handwashing bowls and soap in some of the schools visited, and it was found out that the situation in a number of schools in the Sekyere East and South districts, Afigya Kwabre District, the Offinso South Municipality, Offinso North District, the Ejisu-Juaben Municipality, the Ahafo Ano North and South districts, the Atwima Nwabiagya, the Atwima Kwanwoma, Kwabre East, the Amansie Wes and Amansie Central districts, were worse.
UNICEF’s report
According to the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) report in June 2012, pneumonia and diarrhoea are the two deadliest diseases affecting the world’s poorest children, accounting for 29 per cent of deaths among children under age five.
This is equivalent to two million lives lost each year worldwide. The organisation, however, added that by 2015, more than two million child deaths could be averted, if national coverage of cost-effective interventions for pneumonia and diarrhoea were raised to the level of the 20 richest countries.