Prevent diseases and save lives
“Our future is at hand – let’s move forward together”
OCTOBER 15 is Global Handwashing Day. It is a global advocacy day dedicated to increasing awareness and understanding about the importance of handwashing with soap as an effective and affordable way to prevent diseases and save lives.
Global Handwashing Day is an annual global advocacy day dedicated to advocating for handwashing with soap as an easy, effective, and affordable way to prevent diseases and save lives.
Global Handwashing Day was founded by the Global Handwashing Partnership and is an opportunity to design, test, and replicate creative ways to encourage people to wash their hands with soap at critical times.
The first Global Handwashing Day was held in 2008 when over 120 million children around the world washed their hands with soap in more than 70 countries.
Since 2008, community and national leaders have used Global Handwashing Day to spread the word about hand washing, build sinks and tippy taps, and demonstrate the simplicity and value of clean hands.
Since then, Global Handwashing Day has continued to grow.
Global Handwashing Day is endorsed by governments, schools, international institutions, civil society organisations, NGOs, private companies, individuals and more.
This year’s theme is “Our Future is at Hand – Let’s Move Forward Together” calls for coordinated action as we actively work towards universal hand hygiene.
The current COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the critical role hand hygiene plays in disease transmission.
Hand hygiene must become everybody’s business.
It also reminds us of the need to build on the current momentum to make hand hygiene a mainstay in public health interventions beyond the pandemic and create a culture of hand hygiene.
Handwashing is also key in the fight against COVID-19.
When you wash your hands soap destroys the outer membrane of the virus and thereby inactivates it.
Research says that regular handwashing with soap can reduce the likelihood of COVID-19 infection by 36 per cent.
Today there are 17 countries where more than 10 million people lack proper handwashing facilities.