Lifebuoy raises awareness on
preventive steps for flu epidemics

Sri Lanka’s largest health and hygiene soap brand, Lifebuoy will shortly embark on a series of educational articles and activities to raise the awareness levels on simple techniques to safeguard oneself from simple infections and spread of disease, the easiest being the act of washing hands correctly.
Global organizations like the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Centre for Disease Control recommend that people wash their hands with soap and water thoroughly to prevent the spread of diseases. Lifebuoy has stepped up its commitment to improving health and hygiene through the active promotion of hand washing with soap to help people feel more safe and secure, particularly at the present moment and in the light of the outbreak of the Swine Flu influenza.
“Inculcating the habit of regular hand- washing can drastically lower the risk of catching respiratory infections” said Dr Val Curtis, a world-renowned expert on the health benefits of handwashing. She is the director of the Hygiene Centre at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and a co-founder of the Global Partnership for Handwashing with Soap.”Handwashing with soap is one of the most cost-effective health interventions and is a simple, cheap and an excellent way to remove flu viruses from hands,” she explained.
Washing hands with water alone, a more common practice is significantly less effective than washing hands with soap. Using soap adds to the time spent in washing, while the rubbing action breaks down grease and dirt and dislodges germs through thereby. This simple action was the focus of the first ever Global Hand washing Day in 2008, co-founded by Lifebuoy, which called for improved hygiene practices across the world.
Lifebuoy is a pioneer for health and hygiene by providing affordable soap to everyone and campaigning to change hand washing behavior. With this in mind a series of educational articles on hand washing, in order to inculcate this habit among general public, will be launched by Lifebuoy.