Raising public awareness of the benefits and effectiveness of hand washing with soap

Attending the rally were Deputy Minister of Health Nguyen Thi Lien Huong, Vice Chairwoman of Da Nang City People's Committee Nguyen Thi Anh Thi, Vice Chairwoman of Vietnam Women's Union Nguyen Thi Minh Huong and nearly 1,000 delegates from Departments, Bureaus, Institutes under the Ministry of Health, central ministries, branches and sectors and representatives of socio-political organizations, teachers and students in the city.

Speaking at the rally, Deputy Minister Nguyen Thi Lien Huong said that according to the World Health Organization (WHO), hand hygiene helps save millions of lives each year when done correctly at critical times and hand washing with soap can reduce the risk of infectious diseases transmitted through the digestive and respiratory tracts in children by up to 40%. Notably, lessons from the Covid-9 pandemic show that hand hygiene and hand washing with soap play an important role in disease prevention and control in the community as well as infection prevention and control in medical facilities in Vietnam today.

Deputy Minister of Health Nguyen Thi Lien Huong spoke at the rally.

With the attention and direction of the Party and Government, the coordination of ministries, central agencies, People's Committees at all levels and the efforts of the health sector, the epidemic situation has been basically controlled nationwide. However, some infectious diseases are still complicated and at risk of increasing, especially epidemics and infectious diseases related to clean water, environmental sanitation, and personal hygiene that are not guaranteed during and after floods.

Therefore, regularly washing hands with soap and clean water, maintaining environmental hygiene and personal hygiene are always important, simple, easy to do, and highly effective measures in current epidemic prevention and control work.

Deputy Minister Nguyen Thi Lien Huong added that Global Handwashing Day was first launched by the Global Handwashing Partnership in 2008 to raise public awareness and understanding of the importance of handwashing with soap as an effective measure to prevent and control diseases and protect human lives. Over the past 16 years, Global Handwashing Day has been celebrated by the United Nations, international organizations and more than 100 countries around the world.

Rally scene.

The theme of Global Handwashing Day 2024 “Handwashing with soap - Why it matters” aims to communicate to the general public and the community about the importance of handwashing with soap. At the same time, it calls for more coordinated efforts from management agencies, socio-political organizations and communities to ensure the achievement of hand hygiene goals, and to take action to widely spread the habit of regular hand hygiene, anytime, anywhere.

Deputy Minister of Health Nguyen Thi Lien Hung emphasized that in order to protect the health of oneself, one's family and the community, proactively prevent and fight epidemics towards the goal of "For a healthy Vietnam" with the motto "Prevention is better than cure", units under ministries, branches, socio-political organizations, especially the Women's Union, and authorities at all levels need to continue to closely coordinate with the health sector to promote propaganda and mobilization work to raise people's awareness of the benefits and effectiveness of hand washing with soap so that hand washing with soap becomes a regular habit, a daily habit of every citizen.

Units in the education and training sector advise and direct educational and training establishments, especially nurseries, kindergartens, and primary schools, to strengthen hygiene education, hand washing with soap and clean water in schools for students with many diverse forms, suitable for all ages and levels of education such as: organizing extracurricular activities, research competitions, launching emulation campaigns on disease prevention hygiene.

Local authorities continue to pay attention, direct and have solutions for agencies, units, schools, medical facilities and public places to ensure the supply of clean water, arrange adequate hand washing areas and soap so that everyone can practice hand washing regularly. In addition, each household also needs to have enough clean water and soap for hand washing; especially, there needs to be solutions to ensure the supply of enough clean water for daily life, adapt to climate change, natural disasters such as storms, floods, droughts, and saltwater intrusion.

Vice Chairwoman of Da Nang City People's Committee Nguyen Thi Anh Thi speaks in response to Global Handwashing Day with Soap 2024

Speaking in response to the 2024 Global Handwashing Day, Vice Chairwoman of the Da Nang People's Committee Nguyen Thi Anh Thi called on all city residents, parents, caregivers at schools, and households with young children to voluntarily implement hygiene measures according to the instructions of the health sector. From the specific actions of each citizen with the motto: clean food, clean living, clean hands and clean toys, will contribute to joining hands with the authorities at all levels and the city's health sector to push back diseases in general and infectious diseases in particular.

Students in Da Nang city attended the rally.

On the other hand, the City People's Committee requests the city's departments, branches, and sectors, and the People's Committees of districts to pay attention, promptly direct, and deploy practical activities to respond to the World Handwashing Day with Soap in 2024 in a practical and effective manner. At the same time, the Da Nang City People's Committee hopes to continue receiving the support of the Ministry of Health for Da Nang City in the work of taking care of people's health in general and disease prevention and control in particular in the coming time.

On this occasion, Unilever Vietnam International Company Limited donated more than 20,000 products with a total value of two billion VND to support the Center for Disease Control of five northern provinces, implementing the communication initiative "Accompanying women to build three clean families - Lifebuoy Clean bacteria in the village". It is known that in nearly 3 decades of presence in Vietnam, Unilever has supported more than 22 million people nationwide to be educated about hand washing with soap, environmental sanitation, raising awareness about preventing and fighting infectious diseases.

Source: https://nhandan.vn/nang-cao-nhan-thuc-cua-nguoi-dan-ve-loi-ich-hieu-qua-cua-rua-tay-voi-xa-phong-post836809.html