Digital WASH campaign against Covid-19
Written by Onyekachi Chukwu and Ifeoma Malo
One of the world’s most urgent issues is the lack of safe water, sanitation and hygiene. Improving overall sanitation and hygiene is very important in actualizing development goals such as; reducing the spread of infectious diseases, reducing mortality numbers, creating a cleaner and healthier environment, improving health outcomes, and curbing the spread of the COVID-19 virus.
Poor hygiene practices are a vector for diseases, which accounts for a great percentage of global deaths. This then makes it pertinent to prioritize effective water, sanitation and handwashing strategies, across the globe.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), 2.5 billion people lack access to improved sanitation. Most of the population impacted by this data can be found in the most developing world where poverty, negligence and a lack of knowledge and information exacerbate factors that often make it difficult for people to practice or imbibe sanitary or hygiene norms.
Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) lays the foundation for the promotion of good hygiene/sanitation practices. It also seeks the provision of safe drinking water and the reduction of environmental health risks. And these help people to live in good health, comfort and financial security.
The COVID-19 pandemic highlights the importance and preventive power of water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) to human health and well-being. Good hygiene, such as handwashing with clean water, is the first line of defense against COVID-19 and other viral diseases. This is why it remains important that a priority for health and environmental sustainability actors, particularly during this Covid-19 pandemic should be built around practices that reduce disease incidents.
Nigeria continues to struggle with some of the COVID-19 protocols due to a lack of adequate public conveniences, and where they exist, a lack of running water or clean water. This makes it difficult to enshrine a culture of hand hygiene to prevent the spread of diseases.
The death rates as well as the increase in the spread of this deadly virus, as shown by the Nigeria Center for Disease Control (NCDC) is an indication that there is still a lot of work to be done around public enlightenment as well as the provision of public facilities.
Several organizations have risen to the challenge, by launching innovative ideas to support and create safer communities, with the goal of reducing the number of infected cases across the country. Clean Technology Hub, for example, launched a Digital WASH campaign against the spread of Covid 19 in July 2020. With the Clean Technology Volunteers Network (CVN), this WASH campaign was implemented and championed to reach as diverse an audience as possible. Through animation, videos, and skits centered around the importance of handwashing, face and mouth covering, personal hygiene, and social distancing, the campaign was able to convey the impact of the pandemic on health, income, and community.
The gradual easing of the lockdown and the travel and social activities associated with the Christmas and New Year holiday period in December 2020, coincided with the increase and spread of the 2nd wave of the COVID-19 virus caused by relaxed safety protocols and increased human movements across the country. This led to Clean Technology Hub under the AfriLabs (Sustainable Development Goal virtual meetups project) relaunching a Covid-19 WASH campaign using videos, animation, and local context to pass across the message around the virus. The campaign involved using digital technologies and digital platforms including a broad range of social media to reach as many people as possible. The strategy of the campaign is to continue to emphasize WASH, social distancing as well as face and mouth covering as mitigating measures against the spread of the virus. The ultimate impact would be to make sanitation and hygiene second nature as disease preventative measures across Nigeria to reduce the incidence and burden of pandemics and viruses, especially on vulnerable populations. That would be the measure of the success of our program and campaigns.
Onyekachi Chukwu is a Junior Associate, Environment and Climate Action at Clean Technology Hub
Ifeoma Malo is the Co-founder/CEO of Clean Technology Hub.
