Hygiene: Washing hands before eating food can halve diarrhoea, RTI patients, says Bangladesh survey

13 Percent Still Practise Open Defecation – Washing hands before eating food can halve diarrhoea, RTI patients Reveals ICDDR,B survey

The Health Impact Study Baseline Survey, conducted by International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh, (ICDDR,B) last year, revealed that still 13 percent people are practising open defecation and the practice is most common among children and the hard core poor.

The rate of open defecation among the children and hard core poor is 20 to 50 percent, the baseline survey revealed.

UNICEF and Department of Public Health Engineering (DPHE) organised the survey conducted under the Sanitation, Hygiene, Education and Water Supply in Bangladesh (SHEWA-B) project. (…)

Background on Sanitation, Hygiene Education and Water Supply in Bangladesh (SHEWAB)

See details of DFID’s core funding of this initiative in the project record on R4D for the ICDDR,B Grant 2006-11

See also the abstract of presentation given by Lisa Danquah of the University of Southampton on 29 Januray 2008 on “UNICEF Shewa-B -Findings from Structured Observations, Health Impact Study (HIS)”

Sources: Daily Star, 28 May 2008 and R4D, 29 May 2008