HowDettolisChangingHandwashing HabitsforNigerianChildren
As history has repeatedly proven, the health and well-being of humans have constantly been a challenge to society. The human immune system, though resilient, is susceptible to collapse if exposed to several internal and external factors.
Whether social or physical, environmental factors such as bad hygiene habits and poor sanitation play a huge role in the deterioration of the body through disease and illness. While hygiene-related diseases affect all ages and genders, they have even more adverse effects on those who have a natural predisposition to disease; the old and the young.
Children especially are naturally susceptible to hygienerelated diseases such as diarrhoea, typhoid and cholera. According to UNICEF “in 2019, diarrhoea killed approximately 480,000 young children across the globe, accounting for 9 per cent of all deaths among children under age 5.” These children could have been protected by simple active interventions which include improved sanitation, and even more simply, improved hand hygiene habits.
Hand hygiene is one of the most critical and proven measures to reduce this avoidable harm. Buttressing the importance of this measure, World Health Organisation and the Global Handwashing Partnership have appointed two separate days to emphasise the priority of hand hygiene annually: Hand Hygiene Day held on the 5th of May and Global Handwashing Day on the 15th of October. Both days emphasise the necessity of stakeholder involvement in the impartation of hand hygiene habits in children.
Understanding that both advocacy days are set aside to reiterate the importance of hand hygiene as a medium to prevent infections and to save lives, stakeholders such as Reckitt with their Dettol brand have been heavily invested in advancing the cause. Through robust initiatives, millions of children have adopted healthy lifestyles.
One such initiative includes The School Hygiene Program, through which Reckitt has educated over five million children on proper hand hygiene habits over the past 7 years. This initiative has supported the government’s effort in promoting a healthy lifestyle in children at the primary school level.
Understanding that impacting the lifestyle of children begins with creating a healthy lifestyle they can copy from their parents, Reckitt also introduced The New Mum’s Program. This initiative through which Dettol has educated over five million pregnant women and new mothers on hygienic practices to protect them during the pre- and post- aspects of their pregnancies has translated to children who know no alternative to a hygienic lifestyle.