Unhygienic practices hampering public health; comprehensive initiatives needed

DHAKA, Dec. 14 (NsNewsWire) —  Most of the people in the country are aware of health habit and practices, but lack of practice is the key challenge, said speakers at a dissemination ceremony on national strategy for spreading hygiene.

They emphasized on comprehensive initiatives to expedite raising awareness for building good health practice, and hoped that achieving the goal would not be impossible, as open defecation has been brought down to nearly zero per cent.

Speaking on the occasion as chief guest, Local Government Division Secretary Abdul Malek said some organizations are working in scattered manner for disseminating National Hygiene Promotion Strategy, but these activities have not gained momentum yet.

He said building awareness and exercising of healthy practice are the main challenges, but hope “we could able to achieve it.”

Policy Support Unit (PSU) of government and Water Aid Bangladesh jointly organized the event in cooperation with UKAid at Bangabandhu International Conference Centre, Dhaka.

With additional secretary and PSU project director Kazi Abdul Nur in the chair, Additional Secretary of Health and Family Welfare Ministry Roksana Kader and Department of Public Health Engineering Chief Engineer Khaleda Ahsan were present as special guests. WaterAid Country Representative Khairul Islam gave the welcome speech.

The organizers said six divisional workshops; a district level workshop and 14 upazila level workshops with the participation of concerned representatives were organized under the dissemination activities of National Hygiene Promotion Strategy-2012 for spreading hygiene.

Nearly 7,000 primary and high school teachers as well as 2,000 field workers and officials of health and family welfare department have been given orientation on hygiene and sanitation.

Hygiene promotion materials were distributed among 18,000 teachers and 6 lakh students, and the managing committees of 700 schools were trained. An innovative Five-Star award has been introduced to motivate the community schools and community clinics for spreading hygiene activities.

It is notable that at present, open defecation in Bangladesh has come down to nearly zero per cent, while the country’s progress in supplying safe water is also considerable. However, achievement in hygiene is yet to reach satisfactory level.

Statistics of Bangladesh National Hygiene Baseline Survey, conducted by ICDDR’B in cooperation of WaterAid Bangladesh under PSU of LGD in 2014, showed that while educational institutions in the country have sanitation facilities, only over half of these are usable. Only one third schools have the facilities of hand washing with soap near the toilet, and two out of three children did not have clean hands upon checking.