HEALTH:
Handwashing Could Save a Million Lives a Year

Sanjay Suri


COLOGNE, Germany, (IPS) - Just washing hands could save the lives of more than a million children each year, a study shows.

It protects children from diarrhoea, and more unexpectedly, also from pneumonia. These two are the biggest killers of children below the age of five.

The results arise from studies under 'Phase' (personal hygiene and sanitation education) project taken up in four countries by a partnership of the non-governmental organisations (NGOs) African Medical and Research Foundation (AMREF) and Plan International, along with the pharmaceuticals firm GlaxoSmithKline (GSK).

The 'Phase' programme has now taken on an extensive campaign to promote handwashing among children in the four countries, Kenya and Zambia in Africa, and Nicaragua and Peru in Latin America.

”We are now talking to NGOs in Uganda, Mexico and India to spread the programme further,” Claire Hitchkok from GSK and coordinator of the programme told IPS.

The programme is also looking at a whole range of far-reaching benefits just from washing hands, Hitchcock said. ”We do need more evidence to link handwashing with reduction of the incidence of pneumonia, but we find that when children are cleaner and take care of themselves, they become less susceptible to other diseases.”

Children also showed far greater self-esteem when their hands are clean. ”They were more confident, they were happier, and their academic performance improved,” Hitchcock said.

There is a catch with the programme, though. Children are most susceptible to diarrhoea and pneumonia below age five, and the programme to promote cleanliness and particularly handwashing is aimed at children between six and 13 years of age.”

These children are encouraged then to teach their parents. But that does not mean the programme has to wait a generation to take effect, Hitchcock says. ”There is a high incidence of infectious diseases even among children of that age.” Also, the programme is aiming to get the message across more widely.

The programme runs primarily at present through the school system in select areas in the four countries and has ”transformed personal hygiene and sanitation” in those areas, Hitchcock says.

The best method is to use soap with water to wash hands, but Phase suggests local alternatives such as ash or herbal leaves in Kenya if soap is not available.

”If you don't wash your hands after using the toilet, your hands become a superhighway for transmitting microbes from one person to another,” Valerie Curtis, director of the hygiene centre at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, and a global expert on the beneficial effects of handwashing said in a message to the Phase programme.

”Faeces contain billions and billions of viruses and bacteria,” she said. ”They are public enemy number one in spreading these killer diseases to children.”

Diarrhoeal diseases kill nearly two million children under the age of five each year around the world, which is approximately 15 percent of all child deaths in this age group, says a statement from the Phase partners. Eighty to 90 percent of these cases are related to environmental conditions, in particular contaminated water and inadequate sanitation.

The strong link found between handwashing and a decrease in respiratory infections follows one other study that showed similar results. A U.S. Navy study showed handwashing reduced the risk of respiratory infections among training recruits by as much as 45 percent.

”In Kenya, our programme involves training two teachers in each of the 247 schools in which we are working,” Francis Namisi from AMREF, project manager for Kenya said in a statement. ”These teachers then teach a core group of students intensively, who act as leaders for the rest of the students.”

Students are encouraged to create their own folk songs or poems on handwashing. They also create signs to place near latrines to remind both children and adults to use nearby handwashing facilities.

Some of the other preventative action the teachers encourage is keeping animals away from the home, building latrines and keeping them clean, making drying racks for kitchen utensils, wearing footwear in latrines, and safe waste disposal.