WASH

There are critical moments in human history when a global consciousness takes hold of humanity, with long lasting effects, for good or bad. In the two world wars, for instance, nations raced across continents in an orgy of killing unthinkable for what were supposed to be modern nations. Disaster often leads to an awakening of sorts and mankind ends up with something positive. Despite mankind’s propensity to repeat mistakes the incremental steps towards progress are sometimes peaked by moments of quantum leaps. Sometimes, man forgets and gets back in to the routine of daily life, usually driven by a rat race before being jolted back to seriousness through a humbling experience. Thus far, we have generally failed at government level, to heed the warnings from climate change experts but, faced with visible life-threatening pandemic of COVID 19, mankind is paying attention to a simple, almost absent minded routine: hand washing.

A short history of “conscious” hand washing

Handwashing has been a central component of personal hygiene and a religious and cultural custom for many years. However, the link between handwashing and health was first made less than two centuries ago.

Ignaz Semmelweis, a Hungarian doctor working in Vienna General Hospital, is known as the father of hand hygiene. In 1846, he noticed that the women giving birth in the medical student/doctor-run maternity ward in his hospital were much more likely to develop a fever and die compared to the women giving birth in the adjacent midwife-run maternity ward. He decided to investigate, seeking differences between the two wards. He noticed that doctors and medical students often visited the maternity ward directly after performing an autopsy. Based on this observation, he developed a theory that those performing autopsies got ‘cadaverous particles’ on their hands, which they then carried from the autopsy room into the maternity ward. Midwives did not conduct surgery or autopsies, so they were not exposed to these particles.

As a result, Semmelweis imposed a new rule mandating handwashing with chlorine for doctors. The rates of death in his maternity ward fell dramatically. This was the first proof that cleansing hands could prevent infection. However, the innovation was not popular with everyone:  some doctors were disgruntled that Semmelweis was implying that they were to blame for the deaths and they stopped washing their hands, arguing in support of the prevailing notion at that time that water was the potential cause of disease. Semmelweis tried to persuade other doctors in European hospitals of the benefits of handwashing, but to no avail.

A few years later in Scutari, Italy, the Crimean War brought about a new handwashing champion, Florence Nightingale. At a time when most people believed that infections were caused by foul odors called miasmas, Florence Nightingale implemented handwashing and other hygiene practices in the war hospital in which she worked. While the target of these practices was to fight the miasmas, Nightingale’s handwashing practices achieved a reduction in infections.

Sadly, the hand hygiene practices promoted by Semmelweis and Nightingale were not widely adopted. In general, handwashing promotion stood still for over a century. It was not until the 1980s, when a string of foodborne outbreaks and healthcare-associated infections led to public concern that the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention identified hand hygiene as an important way to prevent the spread of infection. In doing so, they heralded the first nationally endorsed hand hygiene guidelines, and many more have followed.

Source: Global Hand Washing Partnership

What is WASH?

According to UNICEF, “WASH is the collective term for Water, Sanitation and Hygiene”. As we stated above, there comes a time when activities that are taken for granted and simply acted upon, are not the subject the conversation. COVID 19 demands that the three become a daily conversation in the form of reminders for children or just as a conscious discussion between adults. Posters in work place bathrooms and toilets are no longer glibly saying wash your hands, but exhorting everyone to wash their hands in a specific manner with a specific product to enhance the cleaning and hygiene process. The three exist independently but are so closely interlinked in cause and effect terms that one cannot be discussed without the other two. UNICEF reminds us that “for example, without toilets, water sources become contaminated; without clean water, basic hygiene practices are not possible”.

Under the banner of sanitation and water for all, world leaders have issued a call to action in response to COVID 19.