Clean hands cheapest prescription for a healthy future

LAHORE: Punjab leads Pakistan in water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) coverage but still loses tens of thousands of children each year to diseases that clean hands, safe water, and proper toilets could prevent. The numbers show that progress is real - but far from enough.

For Punjab to rise above its sanitation and hygiene challenges, investments must move beyond pipes and pumps to people, behaviour, and long-term maintenance. Clean hands, after all, remain the simplest and cheapest prescription for a healthier future.

According to UNICEF and the World Health Organisation (WHO), unsafe hand hygiene is responsible for 394,000 deaths from diarrhoea and 356,000 deaths from acute respiratory infections annually. Yet in Pakistan’s largest province, Punjab, tens of thousands of children continue to die each year from preventable waterborne diseases.

Globally, 1.4 million people, including 400,000 children under five, die every year due to inadequate water, sanitation and hygiene. Around 1.7 billion people still lack access to basic hygiene facilities, and 611 million have no handwashing stations at all. While 83 percent of the world’s population now has access to some form of sanitation, Pakistan continues to lag behind this global average, and Punjab - though performing slightly above the national mean - still faces a serious hygiene crisis.

Punjab, home to around 100 million people, represents nearly half of Pakistan’s population and thus holds the key to achieving national WASH goals. According to UNICEF and WaterAid estimates, 94 percent of Punjab’s households have access to an improved source of drinking water.