By Dipo Olowookere
World’s leading antibacterial brand, Dettol, has called on all Nigerians to imbibe the handwashing habit as a day-to-day activity, a practice which will reduce the incidence of communicable diseases by 59 percent according to recent findings of the World Health Organisation.
This call comes as Nigeria joins the rest of the world in celebrating the 2018 Global Handwashing Day, today, October 15.
During the event marking this year’s GHD in Abuja, over 2,000 school children drawn from 7 public and private schools which have benefited from Dettol’s School Hygiene Programme across 4 Local Governments in the FCT, participated in a symbolic hand-wash relay.
The event held at L.E.A Model Primary School, Maitama, Abuja, where Dettol also donated 12 hand washing stations to help facilitate and maintain the habit of proper handwashing by the school children.
Present at the event were Mrs Jumai Muhammed, Director, Child Development, Federal Ministry of Women Affairs, representing Minister of Women Affairs, Mr Fubara Chuku, National Coordinator Food Safety and Quality Programme, representing the Honorable Minister of Health, Katherine Arron Rengkwar, Headmistress of L.E.A Model Primary School, Maitama, Abuja, and senior executives of RB West Africa.
Dettol has been promoting good hygiene practices amongst millions of Nigerians especially children in the last eight years, through regular school outreaches and its School Hygiene Programme.
Dettol has also executed various activities promoting healthy lifestyle such as donation of hand wash sites to schools, organising workshops for nursing mothers and partnering with the Nigerian Medical Association (NMA) amongst others.
Speaking on Dettol’s 2018 Global Handwashing Day activities, the General Manager, RB West Africa, Mr Dayanand Sriram says, “Dettol has been the trusted champion for good health and hygiene for over 50 years in Nigeria, and we believe that it is important to inculcate good habits such as proper handwashing at an early age. A simple act of washing hands with soap can prevent illnesses and arrest diarrhoea related deaths. This is why we are continuing with the tradition of driving habit change, and provision of needed infrastructure.”
“Over the past years, Dettol has provided over handwashing sites and educated over 7 million children, parents and teachers about the importance of handwashing through the School Hygiene Program, which is a mass education program about proper handwashing and hygiene habits,” he added.
Dettol has been running health and hygiene programmes across Nigeria where new mothers are educated from pregnancy to the birth of the child on healthy hygiene habits across various milestones of their newborn’s life. Over 700,000 mothers are engaged every year through the programme in public hospitals and clinics across Nigeria.
Adedapo Adesanya 
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