Nkechinyere Ewa-Okpara
United Nations Childrenโs Fund (UNICEF) has called on all stakeholders to join hands to achieve universal hand hygiene.
Maureen Zubie-Okolo officer in charge/ planning and monitoring specialist UNICEF Enugu field office made the call in Enugu Tuesday during a one day zonal press briefing marking the 2024 Global Handwashing Day.
The briefing was organised by UNICEF in collaboration with Broadcasting Cooperation of Abia State for southeast Nigeria with the theme “WHY ARE CLEAN HANDS STILL IMPORTANT”? .
Zubie -Okolo noted that good hand hygiene is a cornerstone of safe and effective health care.
According to her, It is a highly cost-effective public health measure that is also crucial to protecting against a range of diseases like pneumonia and diarrhoea.
She said Global and national estimates reflect vast inequalities in access to handwashing, even within countries. Where hand hygiene facilities are available.
“Greater political support and behaviour change interventions are needed to make substantial improvements in the policies, strategies and actions that drive sustainable change”.
“All of society must work together to achieve universal hand hygiene. To move forward together we must understand where we stand. To support this, UNICEF and WHO launched a joint report, The State of the Worldโs Hand Hygiene, on Global Handwashing Day in 2021.
” This report is the first of its kind, bringing together hand hygiene critical data sets and insights to present the sectorโs current status and highlight lagging progress, calling upon Member States and support agencies to action, and offering numerous inspiring examples of change across the SDG 6 accelerator themes”. She said.
Ijeoma Onuoha, Communication Officer, UNICEF, Enugu field office earlier explained that the briefing was aimed to foster and support a local culture of handwashing with soap among journalists to conscientize the public on its benefits through television, radio and print medium as well as the new media.
Rebecca Geberial UNICEF WASH specialist Enugu field office in her presentation, on why are clean hands important , highlited 5 critical time of hand washing which includes before eating, after using the convenience, after changing baby’s diaper, before feeding/ breastfeeding a baby and before preparing food.
The wash specialist urged the society to maintain hand hygiene in other to avoid diarrhea and NTDS even as she emphasised on the need for government to increase budget on hand washing.
Director General BCA Umahia, Francis Nwaubani represented by Okezie Nkpa in his remark said that over 5 years BCA has been in collaboration with unicef to educate people on vital issues in the society and urged the media to continue to be the Vanguard.
Chika Mba MD Enugu State rural water sanitation agency represented by Chioma Dike the agency wash desk officer noted that handwashing with soap and water is one of the life essentials which the society ignore but handwashing safeguards the society from preventable diseases.