Global Handwashing Day

Join us next Tuesday, September 12, for our annual Global Handwashing Day briefing call ! 

On May 5th - World Hand Hygiene Day – the World Health Organization (WHO) released its first-ever research agenda on hand hygiene in health care. The WHO research for hand hygiene in health care 2023–2030: summary provides guidance on the highest priorities for research to gather further evidence on best approaches to improve hand hygiene practices during health care delivery, as well as to accelerate innovative solutions. During the two-years long consultative process with a large group of experts from around the world, 192 research priorities were identified, of which 178 achieved the consensus. The summary released on 5 May lists 21 highest research priorities in six key areas, including impact of communication on health workers’ behaviour, institutional safety climate, and impact of hand hygiene on health care-associated infections (HAIs) and antimicrobial resistance (AMR). A full document covering all research priorities in the six identified domains will be issued at a later ...

  World Hand Hygiene Day 2023 Webinar. Date:  5 May 2023 -  Time:  14:00 – 15:30 pm CEST. Background : Each year, on 5 May, WHO celebrates the World Hand Hygiene Day, in the context of the WHO “SAVE LIVES: Clean Your Hands” campaign . The aim of this global campaign is to bring people together in support of hand hygiene in health care improvement and thus, impact positively on the quality of care and patient safety across all levels of the health system. Hand hygiene is pivotal on maintaining clean and safe provision of care. The slogan for World Hand Hygiene Day 2023, “ Accelerate action together ”, is focused on the idea that together, we can accelerate action to prevent infections and antimicrobial resistance in health care and build a culture of safety and quality in which hand hygiene improvement is given a high priority. This year WHO is calling on Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) and other partners to engage with the campaign and accelerate progress towards ...

Nobody should be harmed or die when receiving care. Yet every year, millions of people contract infections in health care facilities. The great tragedy is that most of these could be prevented. On World Hand Hygiene Day 2023 , we call on civil society, governments, and health care institutions and workers to join the WHO SAVE LIVES: Clean Your Hands campaign , to accelerate action and spur national and local investment in hand hygiene in health facilities. Campaign theme : Together, we can accelerate action to prevent infections and antimicrobial resistance in health care and build a culture of safety and quality in which hand hygiene improvement is given high priority. Slogan: Accelerate action together. SAVE LIVES – Clean Your Hands. Campaign objectives: Strengthen and empower communities of actors in health care to accelerate action to improve hand hygiene and infection prevention and control at point of care. Foster collaboration and working together of people and organizations ...

Hand hygiene saves millions of lives every year when performed at the right moments during health care delivery. It is also a smart investment that offers exceptional return for each dollar invested. Clean care is a sign of respect to those who seek care, and it protects health and other workers who provide that care. Now is a critical time when countries across the world need to accelerate implementation of lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic and increase investments to close gaps in infection prevention and control (IPC) , including hand hygiene. Indeed, many countries are demonstrating strong engagement and advancements in scaling-up those actions, but overall, the progress is slow, and gains are at risk. Together, we can galvanize action on preventing infections and antimicrobial resistance in health care.  Strong and engaged communities of health workers, policy makers and civil society organizations (CSOs) can accelerate and sustain action at the point of care to keep people...

Hand hygiene hypothesis is the idea that kids need to be exposed to germs in order to develop healthy immune systems. We know that many common viruses did not circulate as widely during the pandemic, thanks to social distancing, masking , and other COVID mitigation measures . Are there downsides to those missed infections? Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health . 

  Hand hygiene in domestic settings is associated with a range of socio-demographic factors and behavioral determinants. Studies included in our analysis reported household knowledge, access to water, cultural beliefs and practices, and perceived susceptibility to illnesses as significant predictors of hand hygiene practice ( Agaro et al., 2022 ; Ogutu et al., 2022 ). For example, Leung et al. (2022) found that while parents had good knowledge of hygiene as a preventative measure, their attitudes and practices did not always translate into hand hygiene actions . This finding emphasizes the need to design programs that go beyond hygiene education and address key determinants to change hygiene behavior . One qualitative study by Sedekia et al. (2022) assessed a WASH intervention on soil-transmitted helminth (STH) infection among children. The authors selected 20 households to engage in sessions that promoted various WASH improvement activities. These sessions were targeted to...