On October 15, Global Handwashing Day, the Indian Public Health Association joined hands with Lifeboy with and ambitious goal of spreading the hand hygiene message.


Washing your hands with soap before eating can save lives make that your new mantra this Global Handwashing Day and everyday! Every year over 3.5 million children, aged below five years, succumb to diarrhoea and Pneumonia. One out of every five victim is an Indian child! What few know is that scrubbing hands regularly with water and soap can prevent us from contracting a number of respiratory and diarrhoea. Imagine this: every day children pick up scores of germ when they travel to school by bus, play in the mud or handle books. Each time they pop a chocolate or bite into a biscuit held with unwashed hands, they consume numerous bacteria, making it a sure-shot recipe for illness. The common cold and the flu are also spread through hand-to-hand contact, a reason why school going children often catch the bug from friends. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) states that the human influenza virus can survive on surfaces for up to eight hours, making people susceptible to catching it each time they touch the infected object. With a large population having limited access to health care facilities or even proper sanitation, the problem becomes more acute. A simple solution is following the water-and-soap ritual before eating. Washing your hands with soap can cut dirrhoea related deaths by almost half (44%) and acute respiratory infections by one quarter (23%). Washing your hands with soap can also reduce skin infections, eye infections, intestinal worms, swine flu, pandemic flu, SARS, avian flu, trachoma, parasitic worm infections, neonatal mortality, school absenteeism, sickness in AIDS patients and chronic malnutrition. Washing your hands with soap is also one of the most cost effective public health interventions to prevent diarrhoea, related to this disease and death. On October 15 Global Handwashing Day, the Indian Public Health Association join hands with Lifeboy with and ambitious goal of spreading the hand hygiene message to pledge to wash their hands with soap before eating-and to spread the word of its importance to friends, family and fellow colleagues who are not practicing this healthy habit.