Lifebuoy REDUCES DIARRHOEA from 36% to 5% in THESGORA

Lifebuoy REDUCES DIARRHOEA from 36% to 5% in THESGORA

 

19March2014–Unilever’s health soap Lifebuoy today announced the results of itsHelp a Child Reach 5 handwashingprogramme launched in Thesgora, India,noting an overwhelmingdrop in incidence of diarrhoea from 36% to 5%^[1].KajolDevgn, actor and handwashing ambassador revealed the results and Sanjiv Mehta, CEO and MD, Hindustan Unilever Limited announced the campaign will scale up to reach 45 million people in India.

The decrease in diarrhoea in this village – known for having one of the highest rates in India of this deadly yet preventable disease – was observed over the period of Lifebuoy’s intervention in an independent evaluation of 1485 households with children aged below 12 years, conducted by Nielsen in September 2013.

Lifebuoy’s Help A Child Reach 5campaign aims to eradicate preventable deaths from diseases like diarrhoea one village at a time, by teaching lifesaving handwashing habits. The campaign was launched with an award winning film www.youtube.com/helpachildreach5 and handwasing initiatives inThesgora, a village in Madhya Pradesh with one of the highest rates of diarrhoea in India. These results show that the handwashingprogrammes had significant positive impact on handwashing behavior and health of the community.
Kajol said, “My journey with ‘Help A Child Reach Five’ started last year as we began with spreading awareness. I advocated for handwashingwith soap with the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and other policymakers at the UN General Assembly, and on Indian TV and digital media. The outstanding results of ‘Help A Child Reach 5’ campaign in Thesgoragives us even more confidence that children can survive by inculcating the simple habit of hand washing with soap”.
Sanjeev Mehta, CEO & Managing Director, Hindustan Unilever Ltd. said, “Lifebuoy Help a Child Reach 5 has demonstrated excellent results in Thesgora and will scale up this campaign to reach 45 million people in India. The results of Lifebuoy’s efforts so far prove that when a social mission is embedded into a successful brand’s core values, significant and indeed lifesaving change can happen fast. So far, Lifebuoy has impacted hand washing behaviours of 183 million people in 16 countries and 58 million people in India.”

Worldwide, 1 child dies from diarrhoea or pneumonia every 15 seconds- which is 2.1 million deaths each year. In India, over 6 lakh children under the age of 5 die from to pneumonia and diarrhoea annually. Handwashing with soap is the most cost effective way to prevent child deaths and contribute to Millennium Development Goal 4 (MDG4) towards reducing child mortality. Put simply, the simple but lifesaving act of handwashing with soap could help many more children reach the age of five.

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[1]Hindustan Unilever Ltd. claim based on research conducted by Nielsen, [September 2013, 1485 households across 11 villages (6 Test and 5 Control), Households with children aged below 12 years]