Background
The first ever Global Handwashing Day took place on
15th October 2008. 73 countries around the world, were
involved in the activities. The focus on the day was
on children, as they suffer the most from diseases spread
by poor hygiene. The day was instigated by the Public
Private Partnership for Handwashing with Soap, and many
different organisations worldwide gave their support.
The London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine is
the convening institution for the UK, which meant that
we coordinate the UK activities.
Global Handwashing Day 2009
Global Handwashing Day will be on 15th October again
this year, and it was decided that even more emphasis
would be put on children.
If you want to be involved in the day, or would like
advice in planning your own activities, then contact
globalhandwashingday@lshtm.ac.uk.
For more information about the day Globally, go to
http://www.globalhandwashingday.org/,
where you can also download the official Planner’s
Guide for advice about planning your own Global Handwashing
Day activities.
To see what is happening for Global
Handwashing Day in the UK this year, go to http://www.globalhandwashingday.org.uk/
UK activities from 2008:
Dirty Hands Study. We swabbed commuters’ hands
outside bus stations in five major UK cities. The results
were shocking: a quarter of commuters sampled had faecal
bacteria on their hands; more men had contaminated hands
the further north we sampled, more bus users showed
contamination compared to train users. The results attracted
a lot of media attention, and the story was the most
read story on the BBC website for over 24 hours. The
results from the study will soon appear in the Journal
of Epidemiology and Infection in a paper by Gaby
Judah, Peter Donachie, Emma Cobb, Wolf-Peter
Schmidt, Mark Holland and Val
Curtis.
- Suds! Poster competition attracted entrants from
schools around the country. The winner from each age
group won a trip to India, to visit Lifebuoy hygiene
promotion sites.
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