Personal Hygiene

Every day, over 2.5 billion people suffer from a lack of access to improved sanitation and nearly 1.2 billion practise open defecation, the riskiest sanitary practice of all, according to a report issued today by the WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme for Water Supply and Sanitation. The programme is the official UN mechanism tasked with monitoring [...]

Now that school’s begun, parents should check their young children for head lice on at least a weekly basis, according to Dr. Annette Bredthauer, the state’s public health veterinarian with the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services. “Head lice are common among elementary school students because they have a lot of physical contact with [...]

The Health Protection Agency has welcomed this year’s Global Handwashing Day initiative which aims to raise awareness about the role handwashing plays in public health. Professor Mike Catchpole, Director of the Health Protection Agency’s Centre for Infections, said: “It is well known that hand washing is one of the most important ways of controlling the [...]

As the world celebrates World Toilet Day today, sanitation experts have called for the end of the flushing dunny to save water and provide fertilizer for crops. Leading health advocates have called for the use of “dry” toilets which separate urine from faeces and remove the need to flush. Speaking at the recent World Toilet [...]