WASHING HANDS AND MAINTAINING HYGIENE: CAN THIS BE OUR NEW NORMAL?
A couple of months ago the world was petrified by the pandemic and everything almost stopped. And a new phrase came to prominence, “the new normal”. This meant wearing masks, social distancing, not shaking hands and washing our hands every now and then. We made it our mission to avoid the pandemic. Little did we know that it was also a mission to end many other diseases that can be prevented by washing our hands.
Once, a friend of mine told me of a shop in their home street where the shopkeeper refused to give service to any customer who did not wash his or her hands before getting the service he or she came for at his shop. I called him a couple of days ago to ask if the shopkeeper still stood on his terms, he told me that these days it depends on the mood of the shopkeeper. I was not surprised, in my mind I thought “at least he still tries”
My point of talking about this is not based only on how washing our hands and using sanitizers protected us from the pandemic. My point is how continuing to wash our hands may assist in curbing the problem or diseases that can be caused by not washing our hands.
Now I know you may be asking yourself, what are the diseases that can be caused by not washing hands. The list begins with Diarrhea, Hepatitis A and many others. As I was thinking of writing this piece, I decided I should first find out how many or what diseases can be caused simply by not washing our hands. Then I came across an article that I read which you can also access through this link https://www.rd.com/article/diseases-washing-your-hands/. This article talks about “15 Diseases You Can Prevent Just by Washing Your Hands”
This means by the act of washing your hands you can simply be preventing yourself from 15 different diseases. I am no health expert but this might be sending a message to the community. A message about the neglected empty buckets that hang around offices, shops and schools that are no more filled with water. These hand washing facilities that were mandatory to be used a couple of months ago are slowly turning into monuments representing the times that we had a reason to wash our hands.
In February 2020, a report on School Water, Sanitation and Hygiene Assessment (SWASH) was released and this too revealed some facts. The report is based on a survey done in 2018 on SWASH. One among many was that six out of ten schools in Tanzania had Hand Washing Facilities. According to the report the presence of the hand washing facilities in urban schools is much higher than in the rural schools.
For example, when SWASH report was being prepared, 47.4% of the schools reported to have water and soap at the hand washing facilities on the day of the data survey but the data from observation revealed that only 32.1% of schools actually had water and soap at hand washing facilities.
Again, through the interviews done during the SWASH report, 43.1% of schools reported having only water and 9.2 % of schools having neither water nor soap at their hand washing facilities on the day of the survey. Data from observations indicated that it is 50.3 %of schools only had water and 16.4% neither had water nor soap.
My intentions are not to muddle you with the statistics but to share with you the situation we are facing. I believe if a survey was done on the availability of the hand washing facilities in different places in Tanzania today, then our hearts and minds will be flabbergasted by the availability.
Maybe the call of action is to each and every one of us. That whenever we come across a hand washing facility, then please let us wash our hands. And when its not having water or soap then please let’s ask the individuals responsible to fix the problem. Let us also educate each other that “washing hands” was not only a measure against the pandemic but a measure against several other diseases.
To the corporate world, the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) can move to schools and other institutions and places which lack the facilities, water and soaps. Make it your mission to ensure the safety of these individuals by making sure that they can wash their hands each and every time.
We may be in the post era of wearing masks but let us not head to the post era of washing hands. Let us not find the storage rooms for the buckets and barrels of water that were the first things to meet at our offices and homes. Let us not remove the papers on our notice boards that demanded us to wash our hands. We need to make “wash your hands here” part of our culture. We may be shaking hands again but the battle against diseases related to washing hands continues.
Article Prepared By
Ken Edwin Heriel
