Consumer goods maker Hindustan Unilever (HUL) has launched a pan-India hand hygiene awareness campaign to celebrate Global Handwashing Day (GHD). The initiative was started five years back by the Anglo-Dutch parent company Unilever’s soap brand Lifebuoy.

“All stakeholders, including the public, have a role to play in helping spread the handwashing message. Lifebuoy is asking the people of India to support the cause by pledging to ‘help a child reach its fifth birthday’ through handwashing with soap. For every pledge we will teach the lifesaving habit to one more child through our handwashing behaviour change programmes,” said Nitin Paranjpe, CEO, HUL.

Lifebuoy and its partners are calling on Governments, schools and communities in India to focus on handwashing with soap as an intervention that can help save millions more lives.

Diarrhoea and pneumonia are the two diseases that claim more than two million lives each year. In India, this translates to the loss of 609,000 children under the age of five every year.

Handwashing with soap has been cited as one of the most cost-effective interventions to prevent diarrhoeal-related deaths and disease, said the company in a release.

>priyanka.pani@thehindu.co.in

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