JEDDAH, 1 June 2007 — Experts on the Hygiene Council, an international body specifically set up to promote hygiene and offer clear and simple guidelines, is holding workshops for Ministry of Health officials and health care professionals in Riyadh tomorrow.
The meeting aims to discuss the impact of hygiene, especially in the context of the World Health Organization’s claim that most children less than five years of age fall prey to diarrheal diseases.
Tariq Ahmed Madani — an associate professor of medicine and infectious diseases at the King Abdul Aziz University’s faculty of medicine in Jeddah, advisor to the Ministry of Health, and a Hygiene Council member — will be joined at the meeting by Hygiene Council Chairman John Oxford, a world renowned bird flu expert and professor of virology at St. Bartholomew’s and Royal London Hospital, UK.
“There is increasing scientific evidence proving how important simple hygiene practices such as washing one’s hands are in the prevention of many infectious diseases. This message really needs to go out urgently to anyone who cares about their health and that of their fellow human beings,” a spokesman for the council told the media yesterday. The most affected are the people in developing countries living in extreme conditions of poverty, he said quoting WHO.
