Handwashing is critical to disease prevention, transmission

Team L&M

On the occasion of Global Handwashing Day (October 15), Unilever, in association with USAID-NISHTHA organised a webinar to discuss the behavioral changes and evidence-based social interventions required to promote healthy hygiene behaviors. Experts at the webinar underlined the relevance of handwashing and reinforced the role of front line healthcare workers in effective prevention of diseases.

While Covid19 established the importance of hand washing in preventing the disease, it also pointed at the glaring lack of hand hygiene that exists across the world. This makes it all the more important that we have continued conversations around the importance of hand washing. Also, this year’s global theme Our Future is at Hand- Let’s Move Forward Together highlights the critical role hand hygiene plays in disease transmission with an emphasis on integrating this critical practice through behavioural changes

A number of studies have shown that personal behaviours cause more than 50 per cent of illnesses and when these behaviours are optimally corrected through scientific methods, it can effectively contribute towards a healthier population aware of keeping themselves safe through preventive measures. Despite being a first line of defence against a number of diseases, hand washing is often ignored, or not seriously practiced.

Speaking at the webinar, Dr T Dileep Kumar, President, Indian Nursing Council, said that incorporating safety measures in developing habits will help avert illnesses and reduce the spread of germs and infections. “Auxiliary Nurses and midwives are instrumental in educating communities and galvanizing behavioural change at grassroots level towards importance of handwashing as preventive care. Creating experiential evidence-based learning with lesser educated communities through nurses and midwives can help instill importance of handwashing,” he remarked

Dr Somesh Kumar, Country Director, Jhpiego, a nonprofit organisation for international health affiliated with Johns Hopkins University, said that even before Covid19, governments, and health organizations all over the world were promoting the need for having clean hands and appropriate handwashing behaviours for disease prevention.