An official website of the United States government
Announcement: Global Handwashing Day — October 15, 2016
Weekly / October 14, 2016 / 65(40);1119
October 15, 2016, marks Global Handwashing Day. This observance increases awareness and understanding of the importance of handwashing with soap as an effective and affordable means of preventing disease around the world.
Handwashing with soap plays an important role in child survival and health. An estimated 1.8 million children aged <5 years die each year from diarrheal diseases and pneumonia, the top two causes of death among young children worldwide (1). Handwashing with soap can reduce the incidence of diarrhea among this age group by approximately 30% (2) and respiratory infections by approximately 20% (3).
Although water is commonly used to wash hands, because of the limited availability of soap in developing countries, many persons do not use soap for handwashing. Even when soap is available, it is often used primarily for laundry and bathing rather than handwashing. Washing hands with soap effectively removes bacteria (4).
Additional information on handwashing and Global Handwashing Day is available at http://www.cdc.gov/handwashing. Information on water-related hygiene is available at http://www.cdc.gov/healthywater/hygiene.
References
- Liu L, Johnson HL, Cousens S, et al. Child health epidemiology reference group of WHO and UNICEF. Global, regional, and national causes of child mortality: an updated systematic analysis for 2010 with time trends since 2000. Lancet 2012;379:2151–61 . CrossRef PubMed
- Ejemot-Nwadiaro RI, Ehiri JE, Arikpo D, Meremikwu MM, Critchley JA. Hand washing promotion for preventing diarrhea. Cochrane Database Syst Rev 2015; (9):CD004265 . CrossRef PubMed
- Aiello AE, Coulborn RM, Perez V, Larson EL. Effect of hand hygiene on infectious disease risk in the community setting: a meta-analysis. Am J Public Health 2008;98:1372–81 . CrossRef PubMed
- Burton M, Cobb E, Donachie P, Judah G, Curtis V, Schmidt WP. The effect of handwashing with water or soap on bacterial contamination of hands. Int J Environ Res Public Health 2011;8:97–104 . CrossRef PubMed
Suggested citation for this article: Announcement. Global Handwashing Day — October 15, 2016. MMWR Morb Mortal Wkly Rep 2016;65:1119. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.15585/mmwr.mm6540a8.
MMWR and Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report are service marks of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Use of trade names and commercial sources is for identification only and does not imply endorsement by the U.S. Department of
Health and Human Services.
References to non-CDC sites on the Internet are
provided as a service to MMWR readers and do not constitute or imply
endorsement of these organizations or their programs by CDC or the U.S.
Department of Health and Human Services. CDC is not responsible for the content
of pages found at these sites. URL addresses listed in MMWR were current as of
the date of publication.
All HTML versions of MMWR articles are generated from final proofs through an automated process. This conversion might result in character translation or format errors in the HTML version. Users are referred to the electronic PDF version (https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr) and/or the original MMWR paper copy for printable versions of official text, figures, and tables.
Questions or messages regarding errors in formatting should be addressed to mmwrq@cdc.gov.