Scrubbing Down.

The article reports that in developing countries, enhancing family hygiene can prevent about half of childhood diarrhea and respiratory illnesses, including pneumonia, according to researchers working in Pakistan. Benefits extend even to infants too young to wash themselves. Studies have indicated that simply washing hands can reduce the spread of infections in daycare centers and other settings in industrialized countries, but how much of a difference hygiene could make in poor nations remained unclear. Diarrhea and pneumonia each kill nearly 2 million children per year worldwide, making them the leading causes of child mortality. To test the impact of promoting hand washing, researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta, Procter & Gamble of Cincinnati, and two collaborating organizations provided soap to 600 homes in Karachi, Pakistan. For 1 year, the researchers made regular visits to each home, resupplying soap as needed and encouraging family members to wash their hands after defecating and before feeding infants or otherwise handling food. In all homes, the researchers counted cases of diarrhea in children up to 15 years old and kept track of respiratory symptoms and skin infections in children age 5 and under. In soap-supplied homes, children under 5 years old had pneumonia or other respiratory symptoms about half as often as did such children in homes not getting soap. Providing soap also reduced bacterial skin infections among children by nearly 50 percent.