Global Handwashing Day is celebrated on the 15th of October every year.
The first global hand washing day was held in 2008, when over 120 million children around the world washed their hands with soap and water in more than 70 countries.
Since 2008, community and national leaders have used Global Handwashing Day to spread the word about handwashing.
In addition, it has been endorsed by Goverments, Schools, International Institutions, Civil society Organisations, NGOs, Private Companies and Individuals.
Effective Handwashing Campaigns were officially launched in 2008 in Nigeria when the country took part in the first ever global initiative of promoting the culture of effective handwashing.
The 2023 Global Handwashing Day is here with the theme,”Clean hands are within reach”.
Health care associated infections (HCAIs) are a global challenge and hand hygiene is the primary measure to reduce them. According to Ataiyero et al in a study on “Barriers to hand hygiene practice in Nigerian hospitals”, patients in developing countries are about 10 times more likely to acquire HCAI’s when compared with patients in the Developed countries.
Hand washing with water and soap (HWWS) is an effective method of cleaning and disinfecting the surfaces of the hands. It is also effective in infection control and preventing transmission during pandemics such as the severe acute respiratory syndrome corona virus (SARS-COv-2). It is a cost effective method for controlling infectious diseases. Washing your hands properly is one of the most important things you can do to help prevent and control the spread of many illnesses. Effective hand washing will also reduce the risk of diseases like flu, food poisoning and healthcare associated infections being passed from person to person.
Nigeria is committed to attaining the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) and has taken high level actions to meet the SDG on Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) services by 2030.
However, progress with the sanitation goal has declined over the years and millions of people are still left without access to sanitation services.
Several factors contribute to non compliance with hand hygiene practices including lack of knowledge, incorrect behaviorial patterns, insufficient training, heavy work loads, access to clean water supply and hand washing facilities.
According to Water Aid report of 2020, only 8% of rural areas and 18% of urban areas in Nigeria have access to complete basic water, sanitation and hygiene services.
In addition, about 60 million people in Nigeria lack access to clean water and 150 milion lack basic hand washing facilities with water and soap, according to a 2018 report by National Outcome Routine Mapping (NORM) of WASH.
It also reported that only 12.5% households demonstrated proper hand washing with soap under running water while only 6% are likely to use soap and water at critical times.
Studies by Nwaokenye et al., 2020 revealed that knowledge gaps, lack of rescources, absence of regulations and poor working conditions were impediments to successful implementation of hand hygiene practices.
Low level of awareness of what proper hand washing is, was reported by Owumolam et al., in 2020.
According to their study, 24.78% of people in selected rural areas during the COVID 19 pandemic were aware that proper hand washing could prevent COVID 19 infection. “Rural” here means a community that generally has a significant portion of its response area underdeveloped. In countries like Nigeria, rural communities are more disadvantaged in terms of communication and lack of adequate water infrastructutre as hand washing practises depend highly on availablity of water and hand washing facilities, such as soap and clean basin. The challenge of poor access to clean water, sanitation and hygiene services is experienced in the rural areas thereby making this segment of the population vulnerable.
Handwashing enforcement is required to change the practice attitude in rural communities. Baits like soap and running water facilities can be provided to facilitate the enforcement. Simple skills and reminder posters and mentorship or support could address many of the barriers. Since preventable infections contribute significantly to disease burden in Nigeria, improving hand hygiene in health care communities and general population can break the chain in the spread of most germs that threaten health and affect socio-economic development.
Intervention strategies on improving effective handwashing could focus on communities through the households, focus on schools through working with teachers and school environmental health clubs as well as focusing on health facilities work through the health workers.
The private sector and academic institutions can have key roles to play in using their platforms to promote effective handwashing messages and also support WASH interventions in undeserved communities.
Achieving the full public health potential of effective hand washing may require a sustained communication message with a content that evolves overtime as well as having better infrastructure in place. Although building hand washing skills takes time, but once it becomes a habit and a regular part of a child’s day, children will practice it throughout their lives. UNICEF says “parents and care takers therefore play an important role in teaching children to wash their hands; parents should wash their hands too.”
*Dr. Idika is a member of the Nigeria Water & Sanitation Association, NIWASA
