The practice of Handwashing with soap tops the international hygiene agenda this year with the first-ever Global Handwashing Day, slated for Wednesday October 15, 2008. With 2008 as the UN International Year of Sanitation, the Global Handwashing Day will echo and reinforce its call for improved hygiene practices, a private TV channel reported.
Every year, diarrhea and pneumonia kill more than 3.5 million children under age of 5-year world-wide. Many of them could have been saved by the simple act of washing hands. Studies have shown that Handwashing with soap can cut deaths from diarrhea by almost 50 per cent and deaths from acute respiratory infections by 25 per cent saving more lives than any single vaccine or medical intervention. The challenge is to transform Handwashing with soap from an abstract idea into an automatic behaviour in homes, schools and communities world-wide.
Supporters of the event will focus on mobilising schoolchildren world-wide to wash their hands with soap to increase the practice of this important behaviour. Global Handwashing Day is supported by the Global Public-Private Partnership for Handwashing with Soap (PPPHW).
In Pakistan, the country's vision for Global Handwashing Day is to have one million schoolchildren across the country all wash their hands on October 15. The school activities will end with an oath to always wash hands with soap at critical times and to help others to do so. In Pakistan, 7.5 million schoolchildren have participated in Proctor & Gamble's Safeguard Schools Programme since 2003. In a country where more than 250,000 Pakistani children die from diarrhoea annually, the practice of Handwashing could save many lives.
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