The United Nations' Children Fund (UNICEF) Friday launched a campaign to promote hand-washing with soap in the Philippines to prevent illnesses such as diarrhoea, which has killed over 70,000 children in the country in a span of seven years.
UNICEF Country Representative Vanessa Tobin said that while Filipinos wash their hands with water, "far fewer wash their hands with soap at critical moments, for example after using the toilet, after cleaning a child and before handling food."
"They don't realize that hand-washing is actually a life-saving habit that can prevent the deaths of millions of children," she said at the launch in the Philippines of the 1st Global Hand-washing Day.
"UNICEF calls on parents, teachers, celebrities, government officials and the general public to urge children to begin a lifetime habit of hand-washing with soap," she added.
Tobin noted that globally, the rates of hand-washing with soap at critical moments range from zero to 34 per cent.
In the Philippines, a Department of Health study showed that only 20 per cent of children below five years old, 37 per cent of adolescent, 44 per cent of adults and 50 per cent of older people wash their hands with soap after using the toilet.
While 90 per cent of adults wash their hands before eating, less than 50 per cent of children below 12 years old observe the habit.
In citing the importance of hand-washing with soap, UNICEF noted that the practice could reduce by 44 per cent the incidence of diarrhoea, which is the fourth top killer of children below five years old in the Philippines.
UNICEF health specialist Marisa Ricardo said the Philippines follows China with the highest number of diarrhoea-related deaths in the world.
She cited a 2000 census by the World Health Organization that showed that 73,265 children below five years old died from diarrhoea in a span of seven years.
"Unfortunately, many children in the Philippines do not wash their hands due to lack of access to water and basic sanitation facilities and poor hygienic practices that had been handed down from parents," she said.
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