Global Handwashing Day is an annual global advocacy day held every 15th of October since 2008 that is dedicated to increasing awareness and understanding about the importance of handwashing with soap as an easy, effective, and affordable way to prevent diseases. It is an opportunity to design, test, and replicate creative ways to encourage people to wash their hands with soap at critical time’s thus triggering lasting change from the policy-level to community-driven action.

The observation of Global Handwashing Day is designed to:

• Foster and support a global and local culture of handwashing with soap
• Shine a spotlight on the state of handwashing around the world
• Raise awareness about the benefits of handwashing with soap
  

The current COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the critical role hand hygiene plays in the prevention of disease transmission. The 2020 Global Handwashing Day theme is “Hand Hygiene for All.” This year's theme follows the recent global initiative calling on all of society to scale up hand hygiene, especially through handwashing with soap. The theme reminds us of the need to take immediate action on hand hygiene across all public and private settings to respond and control the COVID-19 pandemic.

Handwashing with soap and water has been considered a measure of personal hygiene for centuries and has been generally embedded in religious rituals and cultural habits. Nevertheless, the link between handwashing and the prevention in the spread of disease was established only two centuries ago, with studies pioneered by Hungarian physician Ignaz Semmelweis in Vienna, Austria during his work assignment in the Obstetrics Division of Vienna General Hospital and English Nurse Florence Nightingale who revolutionize Nursing care and work during the Crimean War.

Dr. Semmelweis mandated handwashing with chlorinated lime water after establishing that hospital-acquired diseases were transmitted via the hands of healthcare workers caused the rise of maternal deaths due to puerperal fever – an infection, now known to be caused by the streptococcus bacterium that killed postpartum women. Florence Nightingale implemented handwashing and other hygiene practices in the war hospital in which she worked during the Crimean War as it was still a time when most people believed that infections were caused by foul odors called miasmas.

Unfortunately, the hand hygiene practices promoted by Semmelweis and Nightingale were not widely adopted as handwashing promotion stood still for more than a century. It is when a string of foodborne outbreaks and healthcare-associated infections in the 1980s led to public concern that the United States Center for Disease Control and Prevention identified hand hygiene as an important way to prevent the spread of infection. In doing so, they heralded the first nationally endorsed hand hygiene guidelines, which inspired many more countries have followed.

Handwashing appears to get a boost in compliance in the wake of recent disease outbreaks at the turn of the millennium. For example, during the first major outbreak of SARS in March 2003 in Hong Kong, health authorities advised the public that hand-washing would help prevent the spread of the disease, caused by a coronavirus. After the SARS outbreak, medical students at the hospital were much more likely to follow hand-washing guidelines, according to one study. Handwashing with soap is key to protecting public health and leads to benefits in nutrition, education, economic growth, and more. It is an easy, effective, and affordable do-it-yourself protection that prevents infections and saves lives as handwashing is among the most effective and inexpensive ways to prevent these diseases.

In the Philippines, the Department of Health placed the emphasis on handwashing in its BIDA Solusyon sa COVID-19 Checklist. Letter I in the acronym stands for “I-sanitize ang kamay! Iwas hawak sa mga bagay!” (Sanitize your hands! Avoid touching objects!) The said campaign encourages Filipinos to wash their hands with water and soap for 20 seconds or use 70% Isopropyl or 60% Ethyl alcohol. This simple behavior can save the lives of Filipinos from COVID-19, as handwashing is cutting acute respiratory infections by nearly one-quarter. It is the simplest way to prevent the spread of any virus and ensure better health outcomes overall. Handwashing with soap impacts not just health and nutrition, but also education, economics, and equity. #LeoChristianLauzon