Washing Hands: THE MOST NEGLECTED LIFE-SAVING PRACTICE The simple act of washing hands with soap potentially saves millions of lives in the least developed countries. Most infectious diseases are passed on by hands. Yet, hand washing with soap remains one of the most neglected hygiene practices. Every year, more than 2 million children under the age of 5 die from diarrhea and acute lower respiratory tract infections, three quarter of them in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. These communicable diseases are caused by transmission of micro-organism (parasites, bacteria or viruses), either by direct contact, or through contaminated food or water. Many of these deaths could have been avoided by curtailing transmission through improved hygiene: washing hands with water and soap. Hand washing with water and soap is one of the most effective and cost-efficient means of preventing transmission of infections. Unfortunately, ‘effective’ hand washing is not commonly practiced. Critical moments of hand washing are of course after a toilet visit, when coming back from the farms, before and after cleaning a child and before handling food and of course before every meal. Although people tend to wash their hands with water, very few do so with soap. Washing hands thoroughly for 20 seconds, using water with as little as half a gram of soap is highly effective. It is obvious that availability of soap is conditional to practice hand hygiene. It is therefore of utmost importance that at public facilities such as public toilets, schools, markets, health posts soap is always available for people to use. Solid soap bars are almost everywhere sold in local shops and kiosks. Studies show that most institutions are willing and financially capable of providing soap on the condition that the soap is not disappearing. The XOPI is a device that keeps the bar of soap secure and one filling of below 1 USD washes 1600 pair of hands! The XOPI is rugged and durable and is an absolute must
