The Northern Accelerated Intervention for Development Children, a non-governmental organisation (NGO) staged a show in Tamale to sensitise children in the Metropolis about the need to wash their hands with soap before and after meals.
Mr. Mohammed Saani Iddrisu, Executive Director of the NGO said at the function at the weekend, that children and women were vulnerable to diseases due to the unhygienic conditions that characterised their daily chores.
The programme was organised in collaboration with Grassroot Sisterhood Foundation, another NGO.
Mr. Iddrisu said diseases such as diarrhoea, acute respiratory infections, cholera and nematode infections were common to people who ate
with unclean hands.
He said people had the notion that "African germs are not harmful".
Mr. Iddrisu said hand washing with soap was exceptionally efficacious and cost effective means of maintaining good physical condition.
Mr. Kassim Yakubu Alhassan, an official of UNICEF said ash could be used in households as a substitute for soap.