Health officials find soap more effective than any vaccine
-in stemming spread of harmful bacteria
THE SCHOOL Health Unit of the Education Ministry on Friday collaborated with the Health Ministry to host a concert at the David Rose Special School on Thomas Lands, Georgetown, to spread awareness about the importance of hygiene and handwashing among vulnerable groups. The initiative was supported by the Pan American Health Organisation/World Health Organisation (PAHO/WHO) as part of a programme of activities to mark Global Handwashing Day.
The concert featured songs and poems from pupils, and short presentations from the Heath Ministry’s Adolescent Health and Wellness Director, Dr Marcia Paltoo, and UNICEF Emergency Specialist, Ian Jones.
Scores of pupils from several primary schools in the city attended the concert, during  which the importance of properly washing the hands to avoid the spread of bacteria was emphasised, and attendees encouraged to make this practice an integral part of their lives.
Since its inception in 2008, Global Handwashing Day has been observed on October 15, and has been echoing and reinforcing the call for improved hygienic practices worldwide. The year 2008 was also designated the International Year of Sanitation by the United Nations General Assembly.
The guiding vision of Global Handwashing Day is a local and global culture of washing the hands with soap. Although people around the world wash their hands with water, very few do so with soap at critical moments.
Washing the hands with soap is among the most effective and inexpensive ways to prevent diarrhoeal diseases and pneumonia, which, together, are responsible for the majority of child deaths, the Education Ministry’s School Health Coordinator, Ms Dionne Brown, said.
It is estimated that every year, more than 3.5 million children die before their fifth birthday because of diarrhoea and pneumonia. Yet, despite its life-saving potential, washing the hands with soap is seldom practised, and is not always easy to promote.
The challenge is to transform the practice of washing the hands with soap from an abstract, good idea into an automatic behaviour performed in homes, schools, and communities worldwide.
If washing the hands with soap before eating and after using the toilet could be transformed into an ingrained habit, it could save more lives than any single vaccine or medical intervention, cutting deaths from diarrhoea by almost half, and deaths from acute respiratory infections by one-quarter.
Were more persons to practise washing their hands with soap, it would make a significant contribution to meeting the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) of reducing deaths among children under the age of five by two-thirds by 2015.