CWSA, Church of Christ Celebrates Global Handwashing Day with Congregants

The Community Water and Sanitation Agency (CWSA) has marked this year’s Global Handwashing Day with congregants of Kokomlemle branch of the Church of Christ to educate the public to adopt best practices of washing their hands with soap.

Addressing the congregation, the representative of the Minister of Sanitation and Water Resources, Mr. Joseph Obeng Poku, the Chief Director of the Ministry said scientific Research proves that handwashing with soap prevents diseases in more cost effective and efficient manner than any vaccine.

He noted that our hands are the principal carriers of disease causing pathogens from person to person either through direct contact or indirectly through surfaces.

Mr. Obeng Poku indicated that the perennial outbreaks of cholera in the country can greatly be eradicated if people adopt proper hygiene practices like handwashing with soap.

According to him, one of the major diseases, cholera is caused by injection of faecal matter indicating that it has been established that one gram of faeces can contain ten million viruses, one million bacteria, one thousand parasites and one hundred worm eggs.

“This is indeed frightening and that is what makes the safe disposal of faeces and handwashing with soap one of the crucial public health priorities,” he stated.

He noted that there is growing body of evidence that latrine provision alone is not sufficient adding that augmenting existing sanitation activities with a strong hygiene approach cannot be over emphasized.

The Chief Director posited that most people downplay the role hygiene plays in reducing the incidence of diseases and this has indeed brought untold hardship to a lot of communities.

“It is common to find people using their hands unhygienically but will use the same contaminated hands to eat and serve others with food and drinks,” he posited.

Mr. Obeng Poku stressed that physical obstacles to handwashing with soap clearly exist, school lack handwashing facilities, over 50perfcent of the population rely on public latrines which mostly lack these facilities.

He added that most of the eating places do not have the right facilities for handwashing indicating that in 2014, only 46.2percent and 29percent of households in urban and rural areas respectively have handwashing facilities with soap and water.

According to him, this year’s theme, “Our Hands Our Future” reminds us that handwashing protects our health and consequently our future and those of our communities and the world.

The Chief Executive of Community Water and Sanitation Agency (CWSA), Mr. Ing. Worlanyao Siabi emphasized that involvement of church members and also use them as conduit to households and communities for washing promotion.

He stressed that there could not have been any better place to commemorate this year’s Global Handwashing Day than in a church.

Mr. Siabi noted that the church activity is to give significance to the day, which is Sunday and also use it as an opportunity to reinforce the important role religious leaders can play to spread the word about handwashing and demonstrate the value of clean hands.

“If all churches will integrate promotion of handwashing in their sermons the awareness and practice of handwashing will surely improve,” he stated.

The Extension Services Coordinator for CWSA, Mrs. Theodora Adomako-Adjei indicated that Ghana must accept proper handwashing with soap within the next 5years completely.

She emphasized that handwashing with soap must become a habit people automatically perform at critical times and be practiced consistently to work.

Mrs. Adomako-Adjei added that the practice of handwashing has become one of the international agenda which is worth celebrating every year to increase the awareness and understanding of the importance of handwashing with soap.

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