Lifestyle Hand washing saves millions of lives
By Ben Wasserman
Oct 15, 2008 - 9:24:00 PM
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The United Nations (UN) set Oct 15, 2008 as the first
International Hand Washing Day to raise awareness of the importance of hand
washing in more than 120 million children in 70 countries across five continents.
Simple hand washing with soap and water can save millions
of children's lives, the U.N. Children's Fund was cited by VOA News as
saying.
Diarrhea kills 2 million children worldwide each year
with about 500,000 in West and central Africa, UNICEF Spokeswoman, Veronique
Taveau was cited as saying.
The deaths before age 5 can be halved if children simply
wash their hands after going to the toilet.
Pneumonia kills about 2 million lives each year and is
the number one cause of death in children under the age of five years.
Simply washing hands with soap and water could
reduce the deaths and other respiratory infections by 23 percent.
Carolien Van Der Voorden part of the campaign
organization said washing hands with soap and water is the most effective way to
protect against disease.
Studies showed there has been no shortage of soap in most
households, but the problem is that people do not use it often because it costs
money. So soap is often saved for special visitors to do the washing, but not
to do hand washing, she was cited by VOA News as saying.
UNICEF said thousands of children will participate in the
International Hand Washing Day campaigns to encourage hand washing in 13
countries across West and central Africa.
Hand washing is not promoted enough in the United States
where adults and children use dirty hands to serve themselves foods all the
time.
In school, teachers practice good
hygiene, but it does not seem they teach school children to practice a good hygiene.
When they see a child sticks his fingers in
the mouth, they would simply call the child as one normal kid.
Hands can not only get bacteria and viruses, but also
lots of chemical contaminants.
How many
people wash their hands after they use a computer and before eating a meal? How
many people ever think of the flame retardants in carpets before they sit down
on the floor?