Investing in good hand hygiene is key to quality healthcare – Business Daily
Thorough cleaning of hands with soap helps prevent a range of diseases, including the biggest killers of under-fives globally: pneumonia and diarrhoea. PHOTO | SHUTTERSTOCK
The recent global pandemic created a fresh appreciation of handwashing. Suffice it to say — regularly is now second to nature. But this most simple of act remains beyond the reach of thousands of families within the region and around the world, hence placing most lives on the line.
However, according to recent statistics by the World Health Organisation (WHO), several households are yet to access a handwashing facility with soap and water, including half the population of those living in sub-Saharan Africa.
Globally, one in three healthcare facilities does not have hand hygiene facilities. Staggeringly, if developing countries don’t deem it fit to continue investing in handwashing, we risk losing more than a million people every passing year. This is indeed a stark warning.
Thorough cleaning of hands with soap helps prevent a range of diseases, including the biggest killers of under-fives globally: pneumonia and diarrhoea. These two diseases combined kill approximately 1 million adults each year; more so children. At the current rate, only 78 percent of the global population will have access to basic hand-washing facilities by 2030, leaving 1.9 billion people at risk of illness and disease.
During the recent global pandemic, health experts highlighted handwashing as a key measure, yet an estimated 3 in 10 people worldwide were not able to wash their hands at home.
The situation in health facilities is also dire. One in four lack basic water services, and one in three lack hand hygiene facilities, meaning health centres risk becoming breeding grounds for illnesses.
In Africa, traditional approaches to behavioural change on hand hygiene have been limited to educational messages via awareness campaigns. However, research shows that education on health risks associated with poor hand hygiene does not necessarily lead to sustained behaviour change.
Multiple factors —emotions, habits, settings, infrastructure, poverty, attitude, and lack of will — prevent the conversion of hygiene-related knowledge into practice and practice into a habit. Programmes on hand hygiene need to appreciate the interplay between these factors and design an integrated approach rather than addressing it in isolation.
The writer is a beauty, well-being and personal care director at Unilever Kenya and Uganda.
