World Hand Hygiene Day (WHHD) is a global healthcare initiative that is commemorated on May 5th to promote handwashing as a means of preventing the transmission of illnesses. The day also seeks to bring people together to promote global improvements in hand hygiene.
The World Health Organization (WHO) is in charge of organizing the WHHD celebration each year.
Theme:
The theme for the year 2024 is “Promoting knowledge and capacity building of health and care workers through innovative and impactful training and education, on infection prevention and control, including hand hygiene.”
Background:
In order to raise awareness of the value of hand hygiene in healthcare around the world, WHO started an annual global campaign in 2009 called “Save Lives: Clean Your Hands,” which is observed as World Hand Hygiene Day on May 5.
SAVE LIVES: Clean your hands:
SAVE LIVES – Clean Your Hands is an outgrowth of the WHO First Global Patient Safety Challenge: Clean Care is Safer Care work which is now the WHO Infection Prevention and Control (IPC) Technical and Clinical Hub unit.
The WHO’s SAVE LIVES: Clean Your Hands initiative aims to help health-care professionals improve hand hygiene in the workplace and prevent potentially fatal HAI (Healthcare-Associated Infections).
Importance of Hand Hygiene:
- When providing medical care, hands are the primary means of spreading germs.
- Up to 50% of preventable illnesses acquired during the provision of healthcare, particularly those affecting the medical personnel, can be avoided with proper hand hygiene. Infections or germs can spread through the following: touching the mouth, nose, or eyes with unclean hands; preparing or consuming food and beverages with unclean hands; touching surfaces or objects contaminated with germs; blowing one’s nose, coughing, or sneezing into hands, then touching other people’s hands or common objects.
How to Clean:
- Rub hands with an alcohol-based formulation if they are not obviously unclean.
- Washing hands with soap and water when they are obviously dirty from blood or other bodily fluids, or after using the restroom.