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The Community Water and Sanitation Agency (CWSA) has organised �Global Hand Washing Day� to create awareness and the effects of hand washing with soap as well as sustaining behavioral change. The day was also to reinforce the call for improved hygienic practices in the prevention of diarrhoea and respiratory infections. It was on the theme: �More than just a day, Making hand washing with soap a daily practice�. Mr Clement Bugase, Chief Executive Officer of CWSA, said hand washing with soap was among the most effective and inexpensive ways to prevent diarrhoea and other forms of respiratory infections which are responsible for deaths among children. He said hand washing with soap was life saving and easy to promote since it could prevent the spread of the pandemic flu (H1N1) and also make significant contribution to meeting the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) of reducing deaths among children under five years by two thirds by the end of 2015. Mr Bugase said it was common to find people using their hands in an unhygienic manner and yet used the same contaminated hands to eat and serve others with food. He said a study conducted revealed that 98. 6 per cent of cedi notes were contaminated with bacteria and that many Ghanaians did not have the habit of washing their hands with soap therefore it was a wake up call for Ghanaians to make hand washing a daily practice. Ms Bernice Natue, Corporate Relations Manager, Unilever Ghana, said every year more than 3.5 million children die before their fifth birthday because of diarrhoea which was the second most common cause of death in children under five years across the world. She said a UNICEF fact sheet report released in May 2010 showed that 2.2 million deaths of children could be prevented through improvement in the provision of safe drinking water, basic sanitation and hygienic practices. Ms Natue said Unilever was committed to meeting the everyday nutrition, hygiene and personal care needs of consumers and added that management would donate 10,000 Euros to support hygiene initiatives in selected schools across the country this year. Dr Iyabode Olusanmi, Representative of UNICEF, said three out of 100 Ghanaians wash their hands after using the toilet and before eating. She said studies had shown that children of mothers who wash their hands with soap were 44 per cent less likely to get sick from infectious diseases than those with mothers who did not wash their hands and commended CWSA for coordinating the promotion of hand washing. Dr Gloria Amponsah Asare, Family Health Division of Ghana Health Service (GHS) who represented the Director General of GHS, said washing hand with soap prevented diseases like diarrhoea and cholera, therefore Ghanaians should make it a habit to always wash their hands with water and soap. Mr Alberto Wilde, a Representative of USAID, said hand washing with soap was life saving and should therefore be an everyday activity since it had no risk of infection.