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Valuable tips on personal hygiene
Showing the way: Actor Raima Sen demonstrating the correct handwashing procedure to school children in New Delhi on Wednesday.
NEW DELHI: To mark “Global Hand-washing Day”, Bollywood actor Raima Sen gave valuable tips on hand-washing and hygienic practices to school children of Delhi on Wednesday.
Addressing the children, Ms. Sen said a simple hygienic habit of washing hands with soap can save precious lives. “You must wash hands with soap before and after taking food. This is not an ordinary event because thousands of children die due to unhygienic conditions. I think there are small things that can really prevent a lot of diseases. The simple practice of washing-hands with soap, particularly after contact with excreta, can reduce diarrhoeal disease by over 44 per cent and respiratory infections by 30 per cent,” added Ms. Sen, who also distributed health kits to the children.
Pointing out that every year 1.5 million children under the age of five years die from diarrhoeal-related diseases, Sulabh Sanitation movement founder Bindeshwar Pathak pointed out that five of the ten top killer diseases of children in the country were related to water and sanitation and include diarrhoea, typhoid, jaundice, malaria, hookworm and even pneumonia.
“Hand-washing is cost-effective. By not doing so, the economic loss is Rs.1,200 crore. Currently, 2.6 billion people around the world don’t have basic sanitation facilities. The United Nations’ goal is to reduce that number by half by 2015, by creating public awareness about the role of sanitation in spread of infectious disease. The vision for Global Hand-washing Day is to educate people about hand-washing with soap. The practice of hand-washing with soap is on the top of the international hygiene agenda this year,” he added.
The function was organised by the non-government organisation Sulabh International.
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