New Source: JusticeNewsFlash.com
3.5 million children under the age of 5 die from diarrhea and respiratory infections every year. Global Handwashing Day promotes awareness in billions of people around the world that simple hand washing with soap saves lives.
Florida social responsibility lawyers support the international effort of handwashing to decrease childhood death.
West Palm Beach, FL–October 15, 2009, marks the second Global Handwashing Day which is an international effort to promote the simple regular and daily task of a person washing their hands. This day was marked in 2008 by the UN General Assembly to decrease the 3.5 million deaths in children under the age of 5 every year from respiratory infections and oral fecal contamination from diarrhea. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) http://www.cdc.gov and numerous other intrenational organizations are members of the Global Public-Private Partnership for Handwashing (PPPHW) http://www.globalhandwashing.org/ which was formed to help save kids’ lives by washing with soap.
It has been determined that when adults and children use regular handwashing with soap, this simple behavior is the single most effective and inexpensive way to prevent terrible infections from diarrhea and acute respiratory infections (ARI), like pneumonia and the H1N1 flu, that cause serious illnesses and even deaths. The numbers of deaths in children under five years old associated with diarrhea and ARIs annually is staggering and the CDC along with PPPHW offer the following facts:
-Pneumonia causes some 1.8 million childhood deaths annually
-Diarrhea and pneumonia combined totals 3.5 million deaths every year
-About 22 million school days lost annually in the U.S. due to common cold
-52.2 million cases of the common cold affect Americans under 17 years old every year
-Nearly 50% of students don’t wash their hands well
The CDC also participates in International Clean Hands week which takes place every year at the end of September. A call to action for consumers to make every day Handwashing Day is at a sense of urgency now more than ever with the H1N1 swine flu virus taking United States’ schools by storm plus the shortage of vaccine availability. Automatic handwashing after using the bathroom and before eating can decrease fatalities from diarrhea and ARIs by nearly 50% according to a 1997 Family Medicine study. According to PPPHW, handwashing with soap, as an ingrained habit, can save more lives than any vaccine or medical intervention plus slash the diarrhea death rate in half and decrease the ARI deaths by 25 percent. So, step up to the sink, turn on the faucet, and lather up with good old fashioned soap. It feels good to have clean hands and to know one simple task makes you a part of something really big.
Florida social responsibility lawyer education by legal news reporter Heather L. Ryan. News Source: JusticeNewsFlash.com – Press Release Distribution
