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October 15 is Global Handwashing Day.

Global Handwashing Day was instituted and commemorative activities are conducted in different parts of the world to mark the day because handwashing is of utmost importance in protecting people's health.

Human hands make the most frequent contact with all kinds of germs, and one hand generally carries tens of thousands of bacteria or viruses. Once they stick to hands, germs act as a factor in damaging people’s health for a long time.

According to information available, 60 percent of diseases break out through hands. Millions of children under five die due to diarrhoea and pneumonia every year and the outbreak of such diseases is mainly attributable to the germs coming into the body through hands.

Accordingly, the UN instituted Global Handwashing Day under the slogan "Clean hands save lives" and has commemorated the day every year since 2008.

The main thing in handwashing is to wash hands with soap. It is common for people to think that washing hands merely with water can remove germs in no small measure and make them clean. But this method cannot eliminate the large number of germs sticking to hands.

According to experts’ findings, such a simple act as handwashing with soap can reduce the outbreak of diarrhoea by 50 percent and such respiratory infections as pneumonia by nearly 25 percent among children under five.

Handwashing also plays an important role in ensuring food safety and preventing diseases.

Handwashing and hand disinfection played an important role in stemming the infection and spread of COVID-19 which has threatened the lives of humankind and imposed misfortune and pain upon numerous people around the world in recent years. The fact highlights the importance of handwashing.

If people make it their daily routine to wash hands with soap, it can produce incomparably greater effect than vaccination or medical assistance in preventing and treating diseases.

The major target of activities related to Global Handwashing Day is children. Teaching children how to wash hands with soap can markedly reduce their mortality, and encouraging them to make such handwashing a habit from their childhood can actively promote their health.

It is important to provide childcare facilities, educational institutions, the public health sector, families and public catering establishments with better hygienic conditions and environment and encourage people to be well aware of how to wash hands and make handwashing their daily routine and habit.

A variety of events are held in our country to mark the day every year, which provides people with a better understanding of the importance of handwashing with soap.

Kim Mi Rae, section chief of the Grand People’s Study House