Hand hygiene remains one of the most important measures in the fight against infections

Our hands enable us to come into contact with our environment. They treat, care for and promote healing, but they also come into contact with a wide variety of pathogens and can thus transmit infections. That is why hand hygiene is an indispensable part of infection prevention in health care facilities – and one of the most important building blocks of all in the fight against germs!

Hand hygiene – #UniteForSafety – #StrongTogetherAgainstGerms

Hand hygiene includes hand washing, hand disinfection and skin care. While the first two measures remove contaminations or render germs harmless, the latter maintains the natural skin barrier.

Facts:

• Adequate hand hygiene prevents up to 50% of preventable nosocomial infections [2].
• Globally, 1 in 4 health facilities lacks a basic water supply - affecting the health care of 1.8 billion people [2].
• Even in high-income countries, hand hygiene compliance rarely exceeds 70% [2].
• In Europe, 8.9 million nosocomial infections occur annually in acute and long-term care facilities [2].

In healthcare

As clean hands save lives, additional efforts to improve hand hygiene in healthcare facilities are urgently needed. The "5 Moments of Hand Hygiene" show when clean hands are essential [3]. Posters on this and on hygienic and surgical hand disinfection can be found here.

In private

Promote a climate characterised by safety and quality with good hand hygiene

Good hand hygiene with the right hand products not only ensures clean hands, but also creates organisational climate in which value is placed on safety and infection prevention. This can only be achieved by working together. This is why this year’s World Hand Hygiene Day’s motto is Unite for safety – clean your hands! By practising good hand hygiene ourselves, we also set an example for others. In this way, we set in motion a chain reaction AGAINST chains of infection. The more people who work together for this goal, the better.

World Hand Hygiene Day 2022 – #UniteForSafety – #StrongTogetherAgainstGerms

It is well established that hand hygiene – especially hand disinfection – is one of the most important measures to break chains of infection and thus save lives. To recognise the importance of clean hands in health care facilities, WHO launched World Hand Hygiene Day in 2009. The date, 5 May, which represents the five fingers in a hand, was chosen. This year’s motto “Unite for safety: clean your hands” is intended to raise awareness that practising hand hygiene and infection prevention contributes to a culture of safety and quality in health care. Therefore, it is worthwhile to work on the common goal across all levels.

Learn more about the WHO campaign here!