Proper environmental and personal hygiene have the capacity to eradicate polio and other communicable diseases from Nigeria in particular, and Africa in general, a health officer, said.
Thank you for reading this post, don't forget to subscribe!Mr Sani Ismaila, a Senior Sanitary Inspector with the Environmental Health Registration Council of Nigeria (EHORECON), made this known in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Monday in Abuja.
He said using water and soap to wash the hands at regular intervals could prevent communicable diseases such as Cholera and Gastroenteritis, an infection of the stomach and bowel (large intestine) with common symptoms such as vomiting and repeated episodes of diarrhoea (three or more episodes within 24 hours).
“Polio is mostly contracted through unhygienic hands or the environment where children play.
“But if you improve on the issue of hand washing definitely we will be able to eradicate totally or reduce to the barest minimum, the issue of Polio and Cholera, Gastroenteritis and other related diseases that are embedded in our environment.
“So hand washing is very important because it improves our health generally. We have the campaigns going on about kick polio out of Nigeria and out of Africa and the world.
“There are so many other means we can use in polio eradication not only the vaccine, we are now concentrating on the vaccine, which is the campaign.
“Polio is a communicable disease; if we can improve on our general environmental hygiene and our personal hygiene which is through hand washing definitely this will also help in the eradication of polio and other diseases.“
Emphasising the importance of hand washing, Ismaila said most of the communicable diseases became prevalent in the country through unclean and contaminated hands.
“When we talk about washing of hands we are talking of sanitation or hygiene improvement in essence.
“Most of these communicable diseases that are environmentally related are definitely carried into our systems through the hands by touching contaminated objects,“ he said.
Ismaila spoke of the council’s sanitary officers’ commitment to ensuring that the public imbibed the culture of healthy lifestyle.
According to him, in spite of the huge responsibility of the council, the staff strength is not enough to ensure proper coverage and monitoring of the country’s sanitary activities.
He, however, urged local governments across the country to employ health officers at the grassroots for proper monitoring.
“I implore everybody to be self-conscious about individual hygiene anywhere you find yourself because when you do, others would emulate and do same and it continues to spread,“ he said. (NAN)
