WEIRD SCIENCE Hand-washing can save 600,000 lives

IF EVERYONE washed their hands properly with soap, it would save more than half a million lives a year.

Studies have shown that soap-washing reduces the risk of diarrhoea by 45 per cent and pneumonia by 23 per cent. These two diseases combined kill nearly two million children under five every year in Asia and Africa.

Researchers at the

London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine estimate that if everyone in the world washed their hands regularly it would drastically reduce the number of child deaths from these preventable illnesses by as many as 600,000.