818 million children lack a handwashing facility with water and soap at their school.( WHO/UNICEF, 2021 ).Approximately 43% of global newborn deaths occur in sub-Saharan Africa, where only half of health care facilities have a water source on site. ( WHO/UNICEF, 2023) During childbirth, hygiene – and WASH services more generally – have critical impacts on the health of mothers and babies.Unsafe water, sanitation and hygiene are responsible for the deaths of around 1,000 children under 5 every day.
2 billion people still lack basic hygiene services, including 653 million with no facility at all.After touching surfaces frequently exposed to potential contamination.Before preparing food, eating or feeding someone else.Handwashing should be practised at key moments, such as: Information on effective handwashing techniques.A sink or similar receptacle that can be safely emptied.Availability of affordable soap or an alcohol-based rub.Hand hygiene is a relatively simple, highly cost-effective health intervention. Public spending should aim to stimulate investments from households and the private sector.
Governments must establish clear policy relating to the necessary water and sanitation services and facilities, as well as the promotional effort needed to educate communities and sustain good practices. Hand hygiene is a service and a behaviour. Governments must promote and facilitate hand hygiene across society, and ensure handwashing facilities in every healthcare facility and school. Handwashing with soap or alcohol-based rub plays a critical role in public health, and thereby supports education and economic outcomes. Governments must prioritize hand hygiene to drive progress across the SDGs. This simple act is proven to dramatically reduce the spread of deadly diseases. The transformative health benefits of improved water and sanitation services can only be fully realized when good hand hygiene behaviours are practised. Hand hygiene must be recognized as a fundamental behaviour. UN Photo/Mackenzie Knowles-Coursin The way forward Combined with a lack of awareness of good hand hygiene behaviours, this means one of the primary barriers to infectious diseases is missing in large proportions of society. Similarly, for vast numbers of people, there is nowhere to clean one’s hands at home, school, work or in public spaces. However, access to hand hygiene facilities, reliable water supply, soap or alcohol-based rub, and knowledge of good hygiene behaviours are still low in many areas.īillions of people rely on healthcare centres without hand hygiene facilities. COVID-19 is the latest health emergency to raise awareness of hand hygiene. Children under five years old are particularly vulnerable.Īccess to hand hygiene facilities remains stubbornly low.
#5 moments of hand hygiene world health organisation skin
High rates of diarrhoeal diseases, and acute respiratory, skin and eye infections are all driven to varying degrees by poor hand hygiene, devastating families and placing avoidable burden on the healthcare system. Faeces left exposed will find its way back into people’s mouths without good hygiene behaviours.ĭiseases spread by poor hand hygiene have an enormous impact. Many infectious diseases, such as cholera and pneumonia, are often caused by pathogens being transmitted through the air or spread by people’s hands. UN Photo/Prashanth Vishwanathan The issue explained
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