United for Universal Hand Hygiene: a practice that saves lives
Every October 15, the world celebrates Global Handwashing Day, a date that highlights the importance of this gesture as the most effective way to save lives and prevent disease.
The Global Handwashing Partnership established this day in August 2008, during the annual World Water Week in Stockholm, Sweden, as a way to promote a global and local vision of handwashing with soap. The date was subsequently designated by the UN General Assembly.
Follow all activities related to this day with the hashtags #GlobalHandwashingDay #UniteforUniversalHandHygiene and participate
The objective of this day is to raise awareness so that hand hygiene becomes a common practice throughout the world, making it part of our routine. In fact, the 2022 theme, "Unite for Universal Hand Hygiene", alludes to the universality of this practice, and makes a collective call to the whole of society to work together, uniting our vision of universal access to sanitation and the practice of hand hygiene.
This gesture, handwashing, which may seem familiar to many people, is a challenge in some regions of the world, as an estimated 3 in 10 people do not have basic handwashing facilities with soap and water at home. This means that some 2.3 billion people do not have access to regular hand washing. The situation is even more worrying in less developed countries, where 6 out of 10 people do not have access to basic hand hygiene.
Global Handwashing Day provides a platform for action, to increase access and promote the practice of handwashing with soap, in order to achieve Sustainable Development Goal 6: clean water and sanitation for all.
The data speaks for itself
While it had always been important to maintain good hand hygiene, the COVID-19 pandemic demonstrated that this simple gesture is the first line of defence against disease; a simple gesture such as handwashing, which is out of reach for millions of people, can save lives.
Handwashing, together with other hygiene-related prevention measures, is essential to prevent the spread of COVID-19, especially in healthcare and school settings.
According to the latest WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme (JMP) report, half of health facilities worldwide lack basic hygiene facilities with soap and water or alcohol-based hand rub at points of care. Their toilets also lack this basic service.
In addition, although 68% of healthcare facilities had hygiene facilities at points of care, and 65% had handwashing facilities with water and soap at toilets, only 51% had both and therefore met the criteria for basic hygiene services.
This means that half of health facilities worldwide lack basic hygiene facilities, making it difficult to implement handwashing as a disease prevention measure.
In schools, the situation is not much different. 2 out of 5 schools lack basic hygiene services with soap and water, affecting 818 million students, 462 million of whom attend schools without any facilities.
A simple gesture that saves lives
Handwashing with soap is the simplest and most cost-effective way to prevent the infections that kill millions of people each year. However, handwashing with soap is still seldom practiced and difficult to promote, despite its potential to reduce the number of deaths.
Half of health care facilities globally lack basic hygiene services
2 out of 5 schools lack basic hygiene services with soap and water, affecting 818 million students
3 out of 10 people do not have basic handwashing facilities with soap and water at home, i.e., 2.3 billion people do not have access to regular handwashing
The challenge ahead of us is to make handwashing with soap and water something automatic, routinely practiced in homes, communities, healthcare facilities and schools around the world. Making handwashing with soap and water a habit can save more lives than any medical intervention, so we need to increase financing, investing in programmes that are hygiene-sensitive and lead to lasting hand hygiene habits, promote national hand hygiene efforts, and support affordable, accessible, and desirable hand hygiene solutions for everyone, everywhere.
Prioritizing hand hygiene as an essential element of health and development requires a collective effort, an effort needed more than ever to ensure it is a universal practice.