Theodora Adomako-Adjei, the national coordinator of Ghana's handwashing campaign, urged sustained hand hygiene among the public to prevent the spread of COVID-19 and other infectious diseases on Saturday.

She made the remarks in Kumasi in southern Ghana on the occasion of observing the Global Handwashing Day, which falls on Saturday.

The global campaign had been there long before the advent of COVID-19 and should be sustained, she said, urging the society not to take the practice solely as a COVID-19 prevention measure.

She stressed that human hands attract germs, bacteria and viruses in daily activities.

"This is the fundamental reason hand hygiene should be a daily practice for everybody. Whether there is COVID-19 or not, every individual must adopt it," she said.

Also as the extension services coordinator at the state-run Community Water and Sanitation Agency, she expressed her regret that many Ghanaians had relaxed in their observation of hand hygiene.

Moreover, she said handwashing facilities that used to be in place at public institutions during the COVID-19 pandemic had been removed, with some becoming part of obsolete equipment to be discarded.

"If we stop practicing good hand hygiene, cholera, diarrhea, dysentery, typhoid, and all the other public health infectious diseases, would return, and that will be disastrous," she added.