As part of the International Year of Sanitation in 2008, Global Handwashing Day aims to increase the practice of handwashing with soap one of the most effective ways of preventing diarrhoeal disease and pneumonia, which together claim the lives of more than 3.5 million children across the world every year.

Handwashing with soap is the single most cost-effective health intervention at our disposal, said UNICEF Representative Ted Chaiban. Moreover, it is something that every individual in every family across Sudan can practice. The benefits are considerable handwashing with soap helps prevent diarrhoeal disease, limits the transmission of respiratory diseases such as pneumonia, and can reduce the risks of other health problems such as worms, eye infections and skin infections.

Despite its live-saving potential, handwashing with soap is not widely practiced in the northern states of Sudan a recent study showed that 53 per cent of the population did not wash its hands after using the toilet, cleaning children, or before handling food. The 2006 Sudan Household Health Survey also found that across Sudan, the incidence of diarrhoeal disease amongst children under the age of five stands at an estimated 28 per cent, while 12 per cent of children in the same age group are affected by pneumonia.

To help spread the message of the benefits of handwashing with soap, 30 schools in each of the fifteen states in the north of Sudan will organize handwashing activities through local school hygiene clubs. School teachers will be requested to include regular messages about handwashing during morning parades, while television and radio stations will be asked to highlight the issue of handwashing in their daily programming. In Southern Sudan, 30,000 children in some 20 schools will also take part in events to promote handwashing, under the theme Children, Change Agents for Handwashing. Planned activities include a mass handwashing with soap by children, games and dramas on the importance of handwashing.

Effective handwashing is also an integral part of the Sudan Accelerated Child Survival Initiative an ongoing package of integrated health activities delivered at community level which is designed to tackle some of the key causes of child mortality in Sudan.

The simple fact is that handwashing with soap improves health, and saves lives, said Ted Chaiban. When given such a simple and inexpensive opportunity to reduce the risk of serious disease, we all have an obligation to respond and ensure that every father, mother and child in Sudan practices handwashing with soap at critical moments during the day before eating and preparing food, after using the toilet or latrine, and after washing children.