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INDONESIA: Handwashing with soap saves lives
12 Oct 2008 09:37:42 GMT
 Source: IRIN
JAKARTA, 12 October 2008 (IRIN) - Many of the deaths caused by diarrhoea and respiratory infections in Indonesia could have been prevented had people washed their hands more often with soap, the Health Ministry has said.

According to the World Health Organization, of the 161,000 children that died in Indonesia in 2006, 18 percent died from diarrhoea and 14 percent from pneumonia.

The Health Ministry cited US Agency for International Development (USAID) figures showing that only 14 percent of Indonesians wash their hands with soap before eating, 11.7 percent after defecating and 7.4 percent before feeding a child.

"We have to admit that the health condition of most Indonesians remains a cause for great concern," Wan Alkadri, the Health Ministry's director for health environment, told a news conference on 9 October announcing Global Hand-Washing Day, an initiative of the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF), which will be held on 15 October.

"One of the indicators of the poor health condition is the high rate of deaths among babies and children under five from diarrhoea and respiratory infections," he said.

"We call on the public to use the momentum of Global Handwashing Day to make handwashing with soap a habit at home, in schools and in the community where people live," he said. "Washing hands with soap is the easiest way to save lives."

UNICEF, the World Bank's Water and Sanitation Programme, the US Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and several other agencies will jointly launch the first-ever Global Handwashing Day.

Effective, inexpensive

Handwashing with soap is the most effective and inexpensive way to prevent diarrhoeal and acute respiratory infections, which take the lives of millions of children in developing countries every year, according to a statement on the campaign website.

Together, diseases are responsible for the majority of all child deaths, but despite its lifesaving potential, handwashing with soap is seldom practiced and difficult to promote, the website said.

Sanitation project

The Health Ministry has earmarked 600 billion rupiah (US$63 million) for a project that will provide good sanitation facilities in 10,000 villages by 2012. The total cost of the project is estimated at Rp 3 trillion, with the rest to be funded by the World Bank and other sources.

A multi-donor partnership of the World Bank called the Water and Sanitation Program said in a report released this year that at 55 percent in 2004, adequate sanitation coverage in Indonesia was well below the regional average of 67 percent for southeast Asian countries.

Nationwide, sanitation coverage has increased by 9 percent since 1990, representing significant progress towards the target of 73 percent set by the 2015 UN Millennium Development Goal (MDG).

However, at the current rate of delivering adequate sanitation and clean water, Indonesia will fall short of the MDG sanitation target by 10 percent - the equivalent of 25 million people.

atp/bj/cb

© IRIN. All rights reserved. More humanitarian news and analysis: http://www.IRINnews.org


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