The government of Sierra Leone in collaboration with UNICEF, on the celebration marking the Global Handwashing Day and ‘Promote Hand Hygiene For All’, disclosed to the media that they have distributed 4,500 handwashing buckets and 75,000 bars of soap to 4,000 households and 25 schools across the country. The buckets were distributed through local civil society organisations in the Western Area Rural, Port Loko, Koinadugu, Falaba and Bonthe districts.
The Deputy Minister of Health and Sanitation 2, Philip Amara Jambai, said proper handwashing by all should be a norm in society despite challenges accessing water, which he said has been posing a threat to the COVID-19 fight. He, however, assured of government’s intervention to improve on it. Min. Jambai said government and UNICEF, during the outbreak of Ebola, tried to promote handwashing by distributing soap and other handwashing facilities, but that after Ebola everything disappeared.
Dr. Jambai said handwashing at schools should be improved especially when it is a known fact that proper washing of hands reduces bacterial entry into the human system, which further prevents diarrhoea and cholera.
Since 2013 to date, he said there are no reported cases of cholera in the country which shows how critical handwashing is. He, however, promised to improve the WASH sector especially in the areas of IPC and environmental health programs nationwide. The deputy Minister said “the availability of handwashing facilities in our healthcare centres encourages healthcare workers to develop the good habit of hand hygiene to prevent COVID-19 and other nosocomial infections in healthcare settings”.
The UNICEF Country Representatives in Sierra Leone, Dr. Suleiman Baimoh said “access to clean and safe water and sanitation is a basic human right and an essential way to prevent diseases”. He furthered: “The COVID-19 pandemic has proved to all of us that regular and proper hand hygiene practices are important for our overall health and that is why we continue to invest in handwashing facilities for communities across Sierra Leone.”
The theme for the 2020 Global Handwashing Day is ‘Hand Hygiene For All’ and reminds every one of the benefits of taking immediate action on hand hygiene across all public and private settings to respond and control the COVID19 pandemic. The theme also reminds people of the need to build on the current handwashing momentum to make hand hygiene a mainstay in public health interventions beyond the pandemic and create a culture of regular handwashing with soap at critical times such as after using the toilet, after changing a baby’s nappy, after caring for a sick person, before handling food, or before feeding a baby.
According to recent global estimates, three billion people, representing 40 percent of the world’s population, do not have a place in their homes to wash their hands with water and soap.
In the least developed countries, seven out of ten schools have no place for children to wash their hands with water and soap. In Sierra Leone, 81 percent of the population lack access to handwashing facilities with soap and water at home. This puts them at immediate risk of COVID-19 simply because they lack basic handwashing facilities. The majority of those who lack access to water and soap are among the most vulnerable including children and families living in rural communities and those in the informal settlements.
The Coordinator for WASH-NET, Ansumana Soko, said they strongly believe that once government makes the right level of investment in promoting health-seeking behaviour, particularly in key layers of development, the intervention will significantly address wide range of critical areas including ‘out-of-pocket’ expenditure which is way more than 30 percent. He said they will be looking into ways of optimising girls’ school attendance by ensuring no one gets sick of preventable diseases, save government huge amounts of resources for responding to related illnesses due to lack of accessibility, and save five percent of GDP.
By Mohamed Kabba