 Did you know that regular hand washing is one of the best ways to remove germs, avoid getting sick and prevent the spread of infections to others? And that's a day for that. October 15th is Global Hand Washing Day. More about that in the report by Messi Eboquo. The Global Hand Washing Day is meant to create awareness on the importance of hand washing and hygiene in maintaining our safety and health. According to World Health Organization, too many people around the world still lack access to soap and water. A hygiene expert speaks of the significance of the day. So a day like the Global Hand Washing Day is simply another opportunity for us to preach and advocate for the importance of hand washing, not just because there's a pandemic and it's one of the protocols to ensure safety for everyone. But just because we are responsible, we owe it to the next person to ensure safety. We owe it to ourselves as well, to protect ourselves, because checking, you know, research, one would see that many, many diseases that is contacted in this global world that we're in as a result of the fact that someone somewhere didn't wash their hands. And then it goes from one contact to another contact and another contact. So the Global Hand Washing Day is another opportunity to just encourage us to ensure hand hygiene. Meanwhile, the World Health Organization recommends a hand washing technique of 40 to 60 seconds. The first step requires you wet your hands with water. Apply enough soap to cover all hand surfaces. Rub hands palm to palm, right palm over left dorsal with interlace fingers, vise visor. Palm to palm with fingers, interlace. Bucks of finger to opposing palms with fingers interlocked. Rotational rubbing of left thumb, clasped in right palm, vise visor. Rotational rubbing backwards and forward with clasped fingers of right hand in left palm and vise visor. Reins hands with water. Dry hands thoroughly with a single towel. Your hands are now safe. Use toil to ove the faucet. What is the level of compliance with the WHO recommended technique? Proper hand hygiene is the most important thing you can do to prevent the spread of James and protect yourself and others from illnesses. Merci beaucoup for plus TV Africa. Now joining us live is Abyssalah Richard, a former advocate for hygiene, health and safety. Hi, hi, good evening, good evening. Good evening Abyssalah, how are you doing? Hello, can you hear me? Yes, I can. Good evening, thanks for joining us. I said very well, thank you. How are you? I'm very well, thank you. Great, great. Today is hand washing day. Yeah. And more importantly with the pandemic, how is Nigeria doing with hand washing? Well, we can only hope that Nigeria gets better at the process of hand washing. We can only hope that we build more of a culture of hand washing, you know, across every income level, you know, from the people who we call the low income level, you know, group to from the people that we will categorize as low income level to the people that we might categorize as middle income level and to the ones that maybe above those levels. We can just only hope that, you know, we keep building the culture, we keep being consistent in the process of hand washing, that's what I would say. Okay, in that report, we saw the report taking us through the proper way to wash our hands. Without that, I would have asked you to take us through the proper way to wash our hands. Is there anything you want to add? Well, I think the WHO has done a fantastic job of encouraging detail and thoroughness in the process. I would say that the only thing I would encourage is that, you know, those who provide us with a hand wash desist from diluting them. Because I can't really understand if I know yes for economic reasons, some people dilute, but I'm not so certain of the effectiveness of your hand wash when it's already diluted and it's almost as good as water. So I would say that one thing that we should stay away from and avoid is on due dilution because you really can't tell the quantity. You don't have, like, a standard to dilute them. So I would say use the hand wash as a tease so that we are sure of optimum results in terms of hand washing. Oh, I see. Okay. But certain hand wash liquids can be so condensed, can be so condensed that you know that. I don't want to advertise for any brand, but if you live in Nigeria, you're familiar with certain brands that are so condensed, yes, that are so condensed that you can even under running water, you can hardly wash off the soap and the, you know, so what do you, what do you do about such condensed hand washing liquids? Without castigating any brand, I would say that any brand that is what you think would give you the right concentration to wash hands effectively. So I guess this is to say that to, you know, manufacturers, please go and, you know, do more work in terms of, you know, the manufacturing of, you know, the kind of hand wash that would be considered, you know, very effective so that consumers are not in any way tempted to dilute and therefore affecting the process of effective hand washing. I see. And how many times a day is ideal to wash our hands? Well, the truth of the matter, there's no prescription for an ideal number of times that you wash your hands. You wash your hands before you eat, you wash your hands after eating, you wash your hands when you're doing anything dirty. Basically, without trying to make people paranoid or make people suddenly very, what's the words, very overtly conscious, I would say that you should wash your hands every time you've undergone activity that is considered dirty and activity that you see that is considered infectious, meaning you can infect someone or yourself in the process of engaging in that activity. So please wash your hands when you undergo such activities in a day. So then how many seconds or minutes should a hand washing session last? I would generally say 20 seconds, but I am so in love with the WHO's prescription because I am an advocate for hand washing. So I guess the modern area. So if they say because they are a reasonable organization and consider 40 to 60 seconds, then I'd say we should do what it takes to ensure our hands are cleaned and cleaned thoroughly because we are responsible for ourselves and for the next person. Let me let me put the last two questions together for you. I say have two questions in mind. Yes, I was going to ask, I was going to say, how can we encourage more people to imbibe this culture? And then especially children too, how can we help children cultivate this hygiene? Very interesting question. And for the category of people who are now independent, they don't require too much repetitions that children would require. I would say that it would mean that the government has to do more work in trying to sell to them the strength of hand washing. And the strength as it pertains to their own selves and as it pertains to being responsible for the next person. And perhaps if we have more hand washing centers around and we put it in people's faces, that would encourage it. And perhaps if we have enforcement, because I have experienced cases and sometimes I would have a good laugh with myself that you would see things like no mask, no entry. Yes, the people in the place are not practicing what they're preaching. So it would be great if we have ambassadors for hand washing, people that people look up to, people that young adults and even grown really elders of the society look up to and would pay attention to. That's for adults. But to get to our children, I had a bargain in 2019 and I wrote a book just trying to illustrate the process of hand hygiene to our children. And so I'll say for children, we just need to meet them at the point where we can engage them. And the beautiful thing about children is that once you're able to sell it to them, they buy into it and they become self-acclaimed ambassadors. They would even be the ones telling their parents, mommy, you should wash your hands. Daddy, you should wash your hands. I'll say for children, we go to their schools as well. We create cartoons about hand washing, interesting, we make it exciting. We also encourage the parents who have the duty of care to please us be the example they want to see. Thank you, Abyssalah. Thank you, Abyssalah. So we should live out the examples we want to see. Thank you very much for coming on the show tonight. Hello, hope you enjoyed the news. Please do subscribe to our YouTube channel and don't forget to hit the notification button so you get notified about fresh news updates.