A manual to train health-care workers on practising, teaching and observing hand hygiene.
Your 5 Moments for Hand Hygiene
Recommendations of the Healthcare Infection Control Practices Advisory Committee and the HICPAC/SHEA/APIC/IDSA Hand Hygiene Task Force
This document provides a summary of the recommendations for hand hygiene best practices to be performed by health workers providing care and/or support to patients with filovirus infection (Ebola and Marburg viruses).
Fact sheet
Good hygiene is critical to ensure that healthcare staff provide quality care, reduce the spread of infections, and protect the health of communities. This fact sheet explores the healthcare-related risks of poor ...te-to-highlight medbox">hygiene and the critical elements of hand hygiene needed to improve quality of care and reduce negative outcomes of poor compliance (e.g., healthcare-associated infections and antimicrobial resistance) in healthcare facilities, and provides recommendations and additional readings for improving hygiene in health settings and achieving a safe, clean healthcare environment.
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The Hand Hygiene Self-Assessment Framework is a systematic tool with which to obtain a situation analysis of hand hygiene promotion and practices within an individual health-care facility.
Evaluation of hand hygiene practices and related perception and knowledge at a health-care facility is one vital element of the strategy to improve hand hygiene. Continuous monitoring is very helpfu...l in measuring the changes induced by implementation and to ensure that the interventions have been effective in improving hand hygiene practices, perception and knowledge among health-care workers.
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A guide to help you create an Action Plan specific for your health-care facility
All health-care workers require clear and comprehensive training and education on the importance of hand hygiene, the "My 5 Moments for Hand Hygiene" approach and the correct procedures for handrubb...ing and handwashing. The following tools and resources are meant to support bridging the knowledge gap and for you to adopt and adapt to support local improvement.
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Health care-associated infection (HCAI) places a serious disease burden and has a significant economic impact on patients and health-care systems throughout the world. Yet good hand hygiene, the simple task of cleaning hands at the right times an...d in the right way, can save lives. World Health Organization (WHO) has developed evidence-based WHO Guidelines on Hand Hygiene in Health Care to support health-care facilities to improve hand hygiene and thus reduce HCAI.
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Most health care-associated infections are preventable through good hand hygiene – cleaning hands at the right times and in the right way. The WHO Guidelines on hand hygiene in health care support... hand hygiene promotion and improvement in health care facilities worldwide and are complemented by the WHO multimodal hand hygiene improvement strategy, the guide to implementation, and implementation toolkit, which contain many ready-to-use practical tools. This module has been prepared to help summarize the WHO guidelines on hand hygiene, associated tools and ideas for effective implementation.
Available in different languages!
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Three billion people – 40 per cent of the world’s population – do not have a place in their homes to wash their hands with water and soap. Three quarters of those who lack access to water and soap live in the world’s poorest countries and are amongst the most vulnerable: children and familie...s living in informal settlements, migrant and refugee camps, or in areas of active conflict. This puts an estimated 1 billion people at immediate risk of COVID-19 simply because they lack basic handwashing facilities.
The Hand Hygiene for All initiative aims to move the world towards this goal: supporting the most vulnerable communities with the means to protect their health and environment. It brings together international partners, national governments, public and private sectors, and civil society to ensure affordable products and services are available, especially in disadvantaged areas, and to enable a culture of hygiene.
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Special Focus on COVID-19
The report provides updated estimates for drinking water, sanitation and hygiene in schools including progress from 2015 to 2019. It highlights the rapid improvement needed to ensure students have access to handwashing fac...ilities with soap and water during the COVID-19 pandemic, and to meet associated SDG targets by 2030.
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Best practice for hand hygiene requires the availability of clean water, soap, and single use disposable towels or alcohol based hand sanitiser with a concentration of 70%. Availability of these resources is not always assured. When resources for ha...nd hygiene are not available other materials need to be considered to prevent transmission of infection. This document provides community guidance on evidence-based alternative hand hygiene strategies in the absence of clean running water, soap or alcohol-based hand rub.
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This report is the first of its kind. It brings together various data sets to present the current status of hand hygiene, highlight lagging progress, and call governments and supporting agencies to action, offering numerous inspiring examples of cha...nge.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, hand hygiene received unprecedented attention and became a central pillar in national COVID prevention strategies. However, concern with hand hygiene should not only be as temporary public health measure in times of crisis, but as a vital everyday behaviour that contributes to health and economic resilience. Hand hygiene is a highly cost-effective investment, providing outsized health benefits for relatively little cost.
Despite efforts to promote hand hygiene, the rates of access to hand hygiene facilities remain stubbornly low. If current rates of progress continue, by the end of the SDG era in 2030, 1.9 billion people will still lack facilities to wash their hands at home.
This report presents a compelling case for investment in five key ‘accelerators’ as a pathway towards achieving hand hygiene for all – governance, financing, capacity development, data and information, and innovation. These accelerators are identified under the UN-Water SDG 6 Global Acceleration Framework.
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