Global Handwashing Day: Be a Handwashing Hero!

Global Handwashing Day: Be a Handwashing Hero! By Valentina 

Our hands play a part in almost every activity throughout the day: preparing food, touching shared objects and coming into contact with other people. These everyday interactions can make them carriers of microorganisms, which may then be transferred to food or to our eyes, nose and mouth. Washing with soap and water helps interrupt these routes of transmission and prevent intestinal and respiratory infections. Prevention therefore begins with ordinary actions, often performed without thinking, at home, at school and at work.A simple daily routine can help break the chain of infection: turning on the tap, applying soap, rubbing our hands together and rinsing. On 15 October, Global Handwashing Day highlights the importance of handwashing and its contribution to public health. It offers an opportunity to reconsider our habits while remembering that the ability to wash our hands depends on material conditions that remain deeply unequal around the world.

The benefits are well documented. When presenting the new guidelines on hand hygiene in community settings, published jointly with UNICEF on 15 October 2025, the World Health Organization highlighted reductions of 30% in diarrhoeal disease and 17% in acute respiratory infections. These findings demonstrate the potential of prevention at the population level: making handwashing a regular habit can help reduce a substantial burden of illness.For many people, however, the practical means to do so are still missing.

According to the figures cited by WHO, approximately 1.7 billion people lacked basic hand hygiene services at home in 2024, including 611 million who had no handwashing facility at all. The WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme defines a basic hygiene service as access to a handwashing facility with both water and soap available at home. A sink alone is therefore not enough. Measuring these conditions helps reveal inequalities and guide action.

The joint WHO/UNICEF programme also monitors water, sanitation and hygiene in schools and healthcare facilities. In these settings, reliable services affect the quality of care and the conditions in which children learn. Talking about clean hands therefore also means considering how shared spaces are organised and whether essential services remain consistently available.

For children, handwashing connects health with everyday opportunities to learn, play and grow. Preventing infections can help reduce school absences and support wellbeing. Yet children need more than instructions: they need accessible facilities, a reliable supply of water and soap, and adults who help them practise the habit. Parents and teachers can make handwashing part of familiar routines, particularly before eating and after using the toilet. Demonstrations, reminders and playful activities can make these moments easier to remember and repeat.This is where “Be a Handwashing Hero”, the multi-year theme of

Global Handwashing Day, offers an engaging message. Everyone, including young children, can champion clean hands in their community. For children, the idea of becoming a hero can turn an everyday routine into a small act of care for themselves and others. Adults can use that message to introduce the five essential steps recommended by the US Centers for

Disease Control and Prevention:

1. Wet: wet your hands with clean, running water, turn off the tap and apply soap.

2. Lather: rub your hands together, covering the backs, between the fingers and under the nails 

3. Scrub: scrub for at least 20 seconds. Singing “Happy Birthday” twice can help

children keep track of the time.

4. Rinse: rinse your hands thoroughly under clean, running water.

5. Dry: dry them using a clean towel or an air dryer.

These five steps give children a practical way to take part. A handwashing hero can

remember the routine, encourage a friend and show a younger sibling how to do it. Their

efforts deserve support from adults and institutions that keep facilities accessible and

supplied. This Global Handwashing Day, the invitation is simple: help children build a healthy

habit and give them the conditions to practise it every day.

[1] World Health Organization (WHO). Water supply, sanitation and hygiene monitoring.

https://www.who.int/teams/environment-climate-change-and-health/water-sanitation-and-hea

lth/monitoring-and-evidence/wash-monitoring

[2] World Health Organization (WHO). New guidelines on community hand hygiene to help

governments reduce the spread of infectious diseases. 15 October 2025.

https://www.who.int/news/item/15-10-2025-new-guidelines-on-community-hand-hygiene-to-h

elp-governments-reduce-the-spread-of-infectious-diseases

[3] Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). About Handwashing. 16 February

2024.

https://www.cdc.gov/clean-hands/about/

[4] Global Handwashing Partnership. Global Handwashing Day Fact Sheet. 5 September