Participants at a one-day forum have urged governments at all levels to prioritise issues concerning Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) in their annual budgets to reduce prevalence of communicable diseases.

The participants made their views known on Thursday during interactive session between stakeholders and members of media.

The event which marked the 2015 Global Hand washing Day, was organised by a non-Governmental Organisation, `Community Health Initiative (CHI), Nigeria’ in Enugu.

They noted that effective sanitation should be the first step toward the provision of clean water.

Th e stakeholders called on parents, teachers, community leaders, government and donor agencies to intensify their efforts at curbing incidences of diseases associated with inadequate water, sanitation and hygiene.

In her remarks, the Coordinator, CHI-Nigeria, Mrs Janet Ngene noted that regular hand washing was the easy, effective and affordable way to maintain hygiene.

“Hand washing with soap or ash, works by interrupting the transmission of diseases through germs and viruses as hands often act as vectors that carry disease-causing pathogens from person to person, either through direct contact or indirectly via surfaces.

“Some micro-organisms live on the skin as well as within the hair follicles so, unwashed hands distribute diseases unnoticed,’’ she explained.

She called for regular hand washing in schools, homes, hospitals and other public places to significantly contribute to meeting the new Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) by 2030.

Ngene noted that diarrhea and acute respiratory infections were the most common causes of deaths in children under five years.

The coordinator called for the support to replicate successful hand-washing at community, LGAs and state levels as scientific evidence showed that hand-washing with soap was efficacious in promoting good health.

She said with the theme of this year’s day, `Raise Hands for Hygiene’, was to raise awareness about the benefits of hand washing and encourage public private partnership in hand washing by all stakeholders.

In his speech, the Enugu State Programme Manager, Wateraid Nigeria, Mr Jude Emesim, decried the vandalism of water projects provided by donor agencies as seven out of the 16 boreholes provided by Wateraid in their focal communities were vandalised.

“A lot of infrastructure investments have been made in terms of provision of water but most of them are not working now due to vandalism,’’ he said.