By Dr Aung Tun
Introduction
A child reaches for lunch after playing outside. A parent prepares food after using the toilet. A vendor handles money and then serves a customer. These ordinary moments can become opportunities for germs to move between people, food and surfaces. Washing hands with soap interrupts that journey. It is a simple action with consequences for families, schools and entire communities.
Global Handwashing Day, observed on 15 October, reminds us that personal hygiene is a foundation of public health. Its value extends beyond a yearly ceremony or demonstration. The real goal is to make effective handwashing possible and habitual wherever people live, learn and work. Knowledge matters, but people also need convenient facilities, reliable water and affordable soap.
Global Burden of Preventable Diseases
Diarrhoeal disease remains a major threat to children. WHO’s March 2024 fact sheet reports nearly 1.7 billion childhood diarrhoeal episodes worldwide each year and about 444,000 annual deaths among children under five. These published estimates underline the scale of a continuing global challenge and the importance of protecting children through prevention. Contaminated water, food and poor hygiene contribute to transmission.
Respiratory infections, including pneumonia, also cause substantial illness and can be life-threatening, particularly in young children and vulnerable adults. Handwashing can reduce some transmission through contaminated hands, but it cannot block every route of infection. Vaccination, adequate nutrition, ventilation, safe water, sanitation and timely medical care remain essential partners in prevention.
WHO and UNICEF’s 2025 community hand hygiene guidance highlights evidence that hand hygiene interventions can reduce diarrhoea by about 30 per cent and acute respiratory infections by about 17 per cent. These are population-level estimates from research, not a guarantee that each household will achieve identical results. Nevertheless, they show why handwashing deserves sustained investment.
The protection depends on access as well as behaviour. WHO reported that 1.7 billion people lacked basic hand hygiene services at home in 2024. Asking people to wash their hands is therefore insufficient unless the conditions for doing so are available.
Myanmar’s Situation in 2016 and 2025
Myanmar’s Global Schoolbased Student Health Survey, or GSHS, in 2016 and School-based Adolescent Health Survey, or SAHS, in 2025 provide evidence among students aged 13-17. The latter’s full report became available in 2026.
The results show a mixed picture. Students reporting that they never or rarely washed their hands before eating during the previous 30 days increased from 6.8 per cent in 2016 to 11.9 per cent in 2025. This rise of 5.1 percentage points suggests that an important daily prevention habit needs renewed attention.
Meanwhile, the proportion who never or rarely washed their hands after using the toilet or latrine fell from 8.6 to 3.2 per cent, an improvement of 5.4 percentage points. This improvement deserves recognition. However, never or rarely using soap when washing hands increased from 5.9 to 7.5 per cent. Water alone is not an adequate substitute for washing with soap.
School conditions also deserve attention. Students reporting no clean drinking-water source at school increased from 7.2 to 9.7 per cent. The 2025 report additionally describes gaps in access to places for handwashing. Drinking-water access and handwashing facilities are different indicators; neither should be assumed to measure the other.
These comparisons are warning signals, not proof of why behaviour changed. The surveys sampled different students, and self-reported answers can be affected by recall and social expectations. The 2025 study excluded private schools and public high schools in Chin State; adolescents outside school were also outside its target population. Its findings therefore require care when discussing all Myanmar adolescents. Even with these limits, the practical message is clear: reinforce handwashing before eating while sustaining progress after toilet use.
Economic, Social and Educational Impacts
An episode of preventable illness can create expenses for consultations, medicines and transport. A parent may lose work while caring for a child, and an older relative may need assistance. For households with limited resources, even a short illness can disrupt the family budget. Handwashing is relatively inexpensive, although reliable services still require financing.
Schools also bear consequences. A child recovering from diarrhoea or a respiratory infection may miss lessons, struggle to catch up or lose opportunities to participate. Teachers and classmates can be affected when infections circulate. Hygiene promotion offers a practical way to help protect attendance, but the Myanmar surveys do not establish how many absences were caused specifically by inadequate handwashing.
The broader development benefit is an inference from prevention: fewer avoidable infections can turn an occasional campaign into a reliable service. Parent-teacher groups and local organizations can help identify shortages and support solutions suited to local conditions. mean more time for learning, work and caregiving. Protecting health supports the skills and productivity on which national human resources depend. Although hygiene alone cannot solve every educational difficulty, preventing illness helps create conditions in which children can learn more consistently.
Investment should also promote fairness. Children should not be blamed for failing to wash when a school has no soap or its water supply has stopped. Families, institutions and public services share responsibility for making a healthy choice a feasible one.
Community Action and Sustainability
Water, sanitation and hygiene, collectively known as WASH, provide the setting in which handwashing becomes routine. Facilities should be near toilets and eating areas, accessible to younger children and people with disabilities, and supplied with soap and water. Safe drainage, regular cleaning and prompt repairs help keep them usable.
Schools can begin with a simple daily check: is water available, is soap present, and can students use the station safely? A named staff member, a modest maintenance budget and student participation can turn an occasional campaign into a reliable service. Parent-teacher groups and local organizations can help identify shortages and support solutions suited to local conditions.
Teaching should emphasize critical moments: before preparing food; before eating or feeding others; after using the toilet or handling faeces; after coughing, sneezing or blowing the nose; and when hands are visibly dirty. Use plain soap and water, rub all hand surfaces thoroughly, rinse and dry hygienically. Demonstrations should include fingertips, thumbs and spaces between fingers.
When hands are not visibly dirty, an alcohol-based hand rub containing at least 60 per cent alcohol can be an alternative. It does not remove the need for dependable handwashing facilities. Products should be used safely, and young children supervised.
Communities can extend these practices to markets, workplaces, religious gathering places and shared public spaces. Messages should be respectful, understandable and linked to facilities people can actually use. Teachers, parents and vendors can model the behaviour rather than relying only on posters. Sustainability means planning beyond inauguration day. Budgets must cover soap replenishment, water storage where needed, cleaning and repair. Monitoring should measure whether facilities work and are used, not simply how many were installed. Community feedback can reveal inconvenient locations, queues or shortages that discourage regular practice.
Conclusion
Clean hands are a practical investment in healthier families and a more secure future. Myanmar’s adolescent surveys show both progress and gaps, offering direction for action rather than grounds for complacency or blame. Effective programmes should connect knowledge, daily habits and functioning WASH services.
On Global Handwashing Day 2026, let us make a commitment that lasts beyond 15 October. Teach children to wash with soap, support households and schools with usable facilities, and keep those facilities supplied. When handwashing becomes a lifelong habit supported by the community, future generations gain a stronger foundation for health, learning and productive lives.
References
1. Global Handwashing Partnership. Global Handwashing Day. Observed annually on 15 October. Accessed 8 October 2026. https:// globalhandwashing.
2. World Health Organization. Diarrhoeal disease. Fact sheet. 7 March 2024. https:// www.who.int/newsroom/fact-sheets/ detail/diarrhoeal-disease
3. World Health Organization and UNICEF. Guidelines on hand hygiene in community settings. Geneva: WHO; 2025. Published 15 October 2025. ISBN 978-92-4011655-9. https://www. who.int/publications/i/ item/9789240116559
4. Ministry of Health, Myanmar, and WHO Regional Office for South-East Asia. Report of the second Global School-based Student Health Survey (2016) in Myanmar. New Delhi: WHO; August 2018. Section 3.6 and Table 12, pp. 3133. https://www.who. int/publications/m/ item/2016-gshs-country-report-myanmar
5. Ministry of Health, Myanmar, Department of Medical Research. School-based Adolescent Health Survey in Myanmar 2025. Full report, 2026 (version dated 23 June 2026). Section 3.4 and Table 10, pp. 29–31; hygiene trends, pp. 56–57;discussion, pp. 64–65; limitations, p. 69. ■
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