The UK government have issued an information sheet on Swine 'flu. The pdf file can be downloaded HERE

This information is also available in 16 other languages as well as in large print and audio versions from HERE

- Now wash your hands! - BBC’s Peter Day interviews Val Curtis on the cost effectiveness of handwashing with soap.  Listen to Val on this episode of Global Business on BBC iPlayer.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p007kqsh/Global_Business_Now_wash_your_hands_please/

Now wash your hands!

In this edition of Global Business Peter Day hears some simple ideas about cleanliness which could change the fortunes of poor people around the world, hearing from three projects about the techniques of big business - marketing in particular - they are using to carry their messages.  The first message comes from Val Curtis who says that handwashing with soap is the single most cost effective intervention to save lives in developing countries – one million lives could be saved every year.  Val is working with producers to make soap available at prices – and sizes- suitable to the pockets of the poor.

- Changing handwashing behavior in rural India

Adam Biran and Val Curtis have been awarded a Wellcome Trust grant to conduct a cluster randomized trial to evaluate an intervention to change handwashing behavior in rural Indian households.

The aim of the project is to test the effectiveness of a scalable intervention for promoting hand-washing with soap in a rural, developing country context.  The results will provide urgently needed evidence as to whether such efforts can effectively be delivered at low cost in rural areas throughout the developing world, and thus significantly alleviate a major health burden: morbidity and mortality due to diarrhoeal disease. If successful this would also represent a major advance in our ability to change health-related behaviour at scale.

- Environmental Health Group and the Hygiene Centre Review 2009.

Staff from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine’s Environmental Health Group and Hygiene Centre participated in their annual meeting from 11th to 13th January 2010. Sandy Cairncross and Val Curtis the Group’s respective leaders, guided staff and visitors through a review of current work in Point of Use Water, Schools, Sanitation and Handwashing.
Other sessions covered Behaviour Change Models, Understanding Behaviour, Motivation and Disgust.

We also heard from Dhanraj Chokappa Research Technical Resource Development Director at Hindustan Unilever Ltd and Amit Chakrabortty, also of Unilever Research India.
Day 3l concentrated on a brainstorming session preparing proposal ideas for prospective fund application during 2010. These centred around sanitation and hygiene themes such as sanitation financing, water initiatives in West Africa and improving hand cleansing.

- Hygiene Centre Newsletter 2009

Click here to download a review of work undertaken by the Hygiene Centre during 2009.

- New Staff

Valerie Heywood joined the Environmental Health Group on the 4th January. Valerie is a new Finance Officer and will be working within the Administration and Finance Team.

- Old Staff

Wolf-Peter Schmidt has left the Hygiene Centre to take up a studentship in Japan for one year. Wolf is now based in the Institution of Tropical Medicine at Nagasaki University.