Global Handwashing Day is celebrated every 15th of October, to raise awareness and understanding about the importance of handwashing with soap and clean water at home, within the community, and around the world to prevent diseases and save lives. It is an opportunity to do creative ways and encourage people to wash their hands with soap at critical times.
This year’s theme, “Hand Hygiene for All” highlights handwashing with soap as one of the efficient ways to guard ourselves against this ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and to prevent the spread of the virus. It also calls institutions and individuals to reinforce hand hygiene efforts within the COVID-19 response which can outlast the pandemic and ensure continued access to clean water and soap.
The COVID-19 pandemic provides a crucial reminder that one among the foremost effective ways to prevent the spread of germs is also one of the simplest: handwashing with soap and clean water. Keeping hands clean can prevent 1 in 3 diarrheal illnesses and 1 in 5 respiratory infections, such as a cold or the flu. To beat the germs today and ensure better health outcomes beyond the pandemic, proper handwashing must be a priority now and in the future.
Most cases of child undernutrition are due to diarrhea and intestinal infections caused by poor sanitation and hygiene conditions or lack of safe water. Handwashing with soap is a critical determinant for achieving and maintaining good nutrition thru these harmful germs, often found on the hands which can prevent the body’s ability to absorb nutrients. This life preventive practices and healthy behavior plays an important part in preventing micronutrient deficiencies, stunting, wasting, and deaths.
Health problems that arise due to the spread of germs is preventable. That’s why washing your hands is so important, especially at key times like after using the toilet, when preparing food, before eating, and after blowing your nose, coughing, and sneezing.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, washing hands can keep you healthy and prevent the spread of respiratory and diarrheal infections from one person to subsequent. Germs can spread with unwashed hands from one person to another or in surfaces when you:
- Touch your eyes, nose, and mouth
- Eat or prepare food and drinks
- Touch contaminated surfaces or objects
- Touch other people’s hands or common objects when you’ve been blowing your nose, coughing, or sneezing into your hands
Key times when to wash your hands
Help yourself and the people you love by washing your hands often, especially during these key times when you are likely to get and spread germs:
- Before
- Preparing food or eating
- Touching your face
- After
- Using the toilet
- Blowing your nose, coughing, or sneezing
- Cleaning up a child who has used the toilet or changing a diaper
- Caring for someone who is sick when you’re at home
- Leaving public places and touching a contaminated surface or object
- Touching an animal or pet
- Touching garbage
During the COVID-19 pandemic, you must also clean your hands
After you’ve been in a public place and touched an object or surface that may be often touched by other people, such as door handles, desks, tables, shopping carts, or any electronics seen in public places, etc. And also, before touching your eyes, nose, or mouth because germs can easily enter your body when you touch the parts of your face with unwashed hands.
How to wash your hands the right way
Hand washing is easy, and it’s one of the most effective ways to stop the spread of germs. Washed hands can prevent germs from one person to another and all throughout from your home, within the community, workplace, and healthcare facilities.
Here are ways to wash your hands properly:
- Wet your hands with clean, running water
- Apply enough soap and lather well for 20 seconds
- Rub hands together with soap across all surfaces of your hands and wrists
- Lather the back of your hands, your wrists, between your fingers and under your fingernails
- Rinse well under running water and make sure all the soap covered your hands removed
- Dry your hands after rinse using a clean towel
Throughout this celebration of Global Handwashing Day, we must encourage and remind everyone the importance of correct handwashing as prevention to high-risk diseases. Also, to recognize the importance of hand hygiene as one of the most effective and cheapest ways to fend off the COVID-19 and make hand hygiene a habit even after this pandemic. Not just that, we all know that safe water, adequate sanitation, and proper hygiene education or WASH (water, sanitation, and hygiene) can reduce illnesses, save lives, and help to reduce poverty.
This simple act of washing your hands with soap and clean, running water can actually save more lives than any medical intervention or vaccines to prevent the spread of infections and keeping our children safe from illnesses. (PHA John Paul D. Navarro, RPh)
References:
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Handwashing: Clean Hands Save Lives. Retrieved 14 October 2020 from https://www.cdc.gov/handwashing/global-handwashing-day.htm
Global Handwashing Partnership. Global Handwashing Day. Retrieved 14 October 2020 from https://globalhandwashing.org/global-handwashing-day/
Global Handwashing Partnership. Why Handwashing. Retrieved 15 October 2020 from https://globalhandwashing.org/about-handwashing/why-handwashing/nutrition/
World Health Organization. Hand Hygiene: Why, How & When? Retrieved 15 October 2020 from https://www.who.int/gpsc/5may/Hand_Hygiene_Why_How_and_When_Brochure.pdf
