In a unique campaign for one of its most enduring soap brands Lifebuoy, HLL will contribute an amount equivalent to the prize money spent under this campaign - about Rs.5 million - to the World Health Organisation (WHO) approved oral re-hydration salts (ORS) campaign to combat diarrhoea.

The WHO-ORS campaign is being funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).

"We are happy to be associated with Lifebuoy in this effort to save Indian children from diarrhoea," said Massee Bateman of USAID in a statement Wednesday.

"The common nature of this ailment causes us to overlook the significance of this serious public health problem - where it causes the death of one child every minute in India.

"Fortunately, simple means to prevent and treat diarrhoea are available to us - washing hands with soap to prevent diarrhoea and giving ORS to treat diarrhoea being two of the most important ones," said Bateman.

USAID and ICICI Bank, under PACT-CRH (Programme for Advancement of Commercial Technologies-Child and Reproductive Health), have been running a high-impact ORS category promotion campaign.

The campaign, now in its fourth year, focuses on the Hindi-speaking belt of the country where the infant mortality rate due to diarrhoea is the highest.
 
Under HLL's 'Save the children campaign', select wrappers of Lifebuoy soaps will have printed inside them amounts of money in denominations of Rs.50, Rs.500, Rs.5000 or Rs.100,000.

On sending such a wrapper to the company, the 'lucky' consumer will receive the amount printed under the wrapper.