Jeddah, October 18: The Ministry of Health (MoH) sent out millions of SMS text messages on the Second Annual Global Hand Washing Day (on Friday) under the slogan – ‘Clean Hands Save Lives’ — asking parents to encourage their children to wash their hands regularly.
Dr Khalid Al Mirghlani, spokesman for the ministry said that diarrhoeal diseases and acute respiratory infections are responsible for the deaths of more than 3.5 million children under the age of five each year.
“Water alone is not enough. Washing hands with soap and water, especially … after using the toilet and before handling food, helps reduce the incidence of diarrhoeal disease by more than 40 per cent and respiratory infections by nearly 25 per cent,” he said.
“Furthermore, washing hands with soap is also being recommended as a critical action to prevent the spread of H1N1,” he added.
The Global Hand Washing Day aims to engage schoolchildren as effective agents for change. The introduction of water, sanitation and hygiene in schools, including the washing of hands with soap, is an entry point for children to understand and then take these good hygiene practices back to their homes and communities.
Global Handwashing Day is an initiative of the Global Public-Private Partnership for Hand Washing with Soap (PPPHW), a coalition formed by the Academy for Educational Development, Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, Colgate-Palmolive, International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, Procter & Gamble, UNICEF, Unilever, USAID, The World Bank, the Water and Sanitation Programme, and the Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council.
Al Mirghlani said parents must ensure that their children wash their hands. “It is the duty of teachers to tell their children the importance of hand washing to maintain health, environment both at school and at home,” he added.
Meanwhile, the Tourism Committee of the Madinah Chamber of Commerce and Industry (MCCI) fears the industry could suffer a more than SR3 billion loss due to swine flu. According to Abdul Ghani Al Ansari, a member of the tourism committee at the MCCI, the loss of business within the Haj and Umrah industry this year is going to be at its highest when compared to the last 50 years.
–Agencies