The Acting Registrar, Environmental Health Officers Registration Council of Nigeria, (EHORECON) Dr. Baba Yakubu Mohammed has said that the Environmental Health Officers are very strategic when it comes to water sanitation and hygiene practice in the country.
He said “ In the issue of hand washing, we know there must be drivers and the drivers are Environmental Health practitioners at the grassroots because if there is any person who is strategic and who has been doing the promotion and also the advocacy at the high level on this hand washing including both water sanitation and hygiene is an Environmental Health Officer”.
Dr. Baba Yakubu Mohammed made these assertions recently at Kuje Correctional Center in Abuja during the commemoration of 2020 global hand washing day, tagged; “hand hygiene for all”.
According to the Registrar, Hand washing has always been preached even before the coming of COVID-19 pandemic adding that even before the coming of COVID-19, it has however become an eye opener and now it has become symbolic where even in public places, schools, markets, homes and also at the community levels, it is rapidly becoming a protocol or a measure that is so visible.
According to Dr. Baba Yakubu, the global hand washing is being celebrated with the theme “Hand Hygiene For All” which was very symbolic because, it marked the first time the high level inter-Ministerial collaboration will look at the issue of the major areas of COVID-19 containment, which is hand washing.
The Registrar said, “We believe we have started well, he believed with the level of awareness and with the commitment, the government at all levels are giving, we shall sustain it even beyond COVID-19, he enthused.
On why the choice of Prison for the hand washing this year, the EHORECON boss responded by saying “if you look at the theme of this year, leaving no one behind, the correctional center happened to be center where accessibility is always difficult, therefore the government decided to come and celebrate it here, meaning there is a message that the government will leave no one behind”.
The Registrar also reminded them that recently, the Honorable Minister of Environment, Dr. Muhammed Mahmood Abubakar activated 60,000 Environmental Health Volunteers who were deployed to mount preventive measures as schools are reopening , adding that, this efforts by government was to show that there is enough manpower.
According to the Registrar, the Minister has promised that as other sectors are opening up, also the number will be scaled up so that at the end of the day, Nigerians will feel the presence and impact of sanitary inspectors who are now called Environmental Health Officers.
Kehinde A. Openibo
Head, Public Affairs
For: Registrar
