Val Curtis wins Health Communicator of the Year

Monday, 6 April 2009

Dr Val Curtis of the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine has received the Health Communicator of the Year award.

Dr Curtis, Director of the Hygiene Centre at the London School of Hygiene, was awarded the prize for her success in reaching a global audience with her message on Handwashing.

Her communication skills have led to the world's first Global Handwashing Day which saw the participation of millions of children in 85 countries.

Dr Curtis is a founding leader of the Global Public-Private Partnership for Handwashing with Soap, persuading large multinational corporations such as Procter & Gamble, Colgate-Palmolive and Unilever to join the initiative to promote Handwashing with soap to prevent diarrhoeal disease in the developing world, and kills more than 2 million children a year.

As a result of her work, more than 20 countries now have national Handwashing programmes and Unilever has pledged to get a billion people washing their hands by 2015.

Dr Curtis adds ''I'm delighted to win such an important award because it puts the spotlight on handwashing, and all the good it can do to save lives in developing countries. It is recognition for the great work done by colleagues at the Hygiene Centre, at the LSHTM, in the UK coalition and in the Global Public-Private Partnership for Handwashing with Soap who made Global Handwash Day happen. Next year's GHD, October 15th, should be even more exciting.'

Ends.

To interview Dr Curtis or for more information, please contact the LSHTM Press Office on 020 7927 2802 or gemma.howe@lshtm.ac.uk

Photographs available on request.