Your health is in your hands

     YOUR HEALTH IS IN YOUR HANDS

Today is Monday October 15, 2018 and I'm sincerely glad because it is the Global Handwashing Day (GHD). All over the world, we will be celebrating Handwashing which is one of the key actions to healthy living.

Global Handwashing Day (GHD) is a campaign to motivate and mobilize people around the world to improve their Handwashing habits. This involves washing hands at critical points during the day and washing with soap are both important.

Global Handwashing Day occurs on 15 October of each year. The global campaign is dedicated to raising awareness of handwashing with soap as a key factor in Disease Prevention. Respiratory and intestinal diseases can be reduced by 25-50%. This year, the Global Handwashing Day theme focuses on the links between handwashing and food – including food hygiene and nutrition.

Handwashing is an important part of keeping food safe, preventing diseases, and helping children grow strong. This year's tagline, Clean hands – a recipe for health, reminds us to make handwashing a part of every meal.

In case you do not know, Global Handwashing Day was initiated by the Global Handwashing Partnership (GHP) in August 2008 at the annual World water week in Stockholm, Sweden. This means that the first Global Handwashing Day took place on 15 October 2008. The date was appointed by the UN General Assembly. Be reminded also that the year 2008 was also the International year of sanitation.

At the wake of the Ebola virus outbreak In 2014 in Nigeria, Handwashing was a major tool used to fight the disease to a stand still. Then, everyone took the handwash thing very seriously, but today, we have gone back to our old ways of doing things. We all recall that there were wash hand basins and sanitizers at every corner of the country. Even bank tellers started using hand gloves and nose masks!

The campaign of handwashing was initiated to reduce childhood mortality rates and related respiratory and diarrheal diseases by introducing simple behavioral changes, such as handwashing with soap. this simple action can reduce the mortality rate of respiratory disease by 25%. Death from diarrheal diseases can also be reduced by 50%.

Rather than the fire brigade approach we tend to adopt in this part of the world, it is important to make handwashing into a habit. Good handwashing with soap before eating and after using the toilet into a regular habit can save more lives than any vaccine or medical treatment, cutting deaths from diarrhea by almost half and deaths from acute respiratory infections by one-quarter.

Proper hygiene requires that individuals know the importance of good hygiene and develop the habits to carry it out. There are people with plenty of money but nonetheless, they lack the important habits of timely handwashing with soap, and thereby unknowingly endanger themselves and others around them.

How can you as a person make a difference as we celebrate this year's Global Handwashing Day?

Wash your hands with soap at critical times, especially before eating, cooking, or feeding others.

Model good handwashing behavior, and remind or help others to always wash their hands before eating.

Make handwashing part of your family meals.

Establish places to wash your hands in the household, in your community, in schools, workplaces,other public places and in health facilities.

Promote effective handwashing behavior change in research, policy, programs, and advocacy.

Unarguably, your health is in your hands as microbes travel from almost every other part of your body to your hands because of the strong connection between the hands and other parts. A trip of the unwashed hands to the mouth will lead to troubles not prepared for.

As you read this, there is a need for you to wash your hands before you use the same hands used in scrolling your phone to put something into your mouth. Why? Your phone contains more microbes than your toilet. You can argue with your phone!

So, learn to build that habit back into your subconscious mind and teach everyone around you too. Remember, the health of one man is the health of all. The rants continue

Your health is in your hands!!!

Happy #Global_Handwashing_Day my people!!!

You sha know that I love you.

Your ranting friend
Femi

Femi Abolade, licensed EHO, Writer, author and public speaker
femibolade12@gmail.com
+234 8074275257