World Hand Hygiene Day
5 May 2023
WHO
©
Credits
Accelerate action together. SAVE LIVES – Clean Your Hands
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 safe and healthy.
For World Hand Hygiene Day 2023, we put CSOs in focus. Driven by their passion, values and strong social justice agendas, and often in close proximity to the communities they serve, CSOs can spearhead and accelerate change at local, national and international levels.
WHO is calling on all CSOs and other partner organizations (e.g. members of the Global IPC Network) to engage with the campaign and accelerate progress at achieving effective hand hygiene at point of care!
Campaign details
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 towards the common goal of minimizing the risk of infections and the development of antimicrobial resistance in health care.
This year's calls to action:
- Health and care workers: Love the 5 moments.
- IPC practitioners: Lead the way for clean hands.
- Policy makers: Invest for health and dignity.
- Those who access care: Join the movement.
Videos & tools
Announcements
WHO would like to thank all our partners for their continued efforts to promote WHHD and accelerate progress at achieving effective hand hygiene at point of care! To learn more, read the latest newsletter below and see how health and care workers and others are celebrating around the world.
Be sure to visit the WHO regional campaign webpages for more tailored resources for your WHHD 2023 celebration:
Campaign essentials
There is a wide range of campaign materials such as posters, social media assets, web banners, a short video in social media vertical format, etc. available in the six official UN languages. All assets, the high and low resolution files and translations are accessible for download through the below link.
MAIN CAMPAIGN POSTERS 2023
The below posters are web versions only. All campaign assets in multiple resolutions and/or print versions can be found by clicking "read more".
CALLS TO ACTION POSTERS 2023
This poster is part of the World Hand Hygiene Day 2023 celebrated every year on 5th May. This is the call to action poster for IPC practitioners....
This poster is part of the World Hand Hygiene Day 2023 celebrated every year on 5th May. This is the call to action poster for those who access care....
This poster is part of the World Hand Hygiene Day 2023 celebrated every year on 5th May. This is the call to action poster for policy makers. For...
This poster is part of the World Hand Hygiene Day 2023 celebrated every year on 5th May. This is the call to action poster for health and care workers....
Key facts and figures
We have compiled the facts, evidence, numbers, examples, and stats for you to use to raise awareness about hand hygiene in your messages and presentations.
Key documents on hand hygiene
To read more and see what other resources are available, please visit our hand hygiene webpage.
17 September 2020
Core competencies for infection prevention and control professionals
The purpose of this document is to define who is the infection prevention and control (IPC) professional and identify what core competencies are needed...
18 November 2019
Minimum requirements for infection prevention and control programmes
The purpose of this document is to present and promote the minimum requirements for IPC programmes at the national and health care facility level, identified...
15 January 2021
Aide-memoire: Infection prevention and control (IPC) principles and procedures for COVID-19 vaccination...
This Aide Memoire is for policy makers, immunization programme managers, infection prevention and control (IPC) focal points at national, sub-national,...
12 October 2020
Hand hygiene for all initiative: improving access and behaviour in health care facilities
The WHO and UNICEF-led Hand Hygiene for All Initiative aims at ensuring implementation for WHO's global recommendations on hand hygiene to prevent and...
1 April 2020
Recommendations to Member States to improve hand hygiene practices to help prevent the transmission of...
WHO recommends member states provide universal access to public hand hygiene stations and making their use obligatory on entering and leaving any public...
2 October 2010
Hand hygiene self-assessment framework 2010
The Hand Hygiene Self-Assessment Framework is a systematic tool with which to obtain a situation analysis of hand hygiene promotion and practices within...
31 July 2009
Hand Hygiene: Why, How & When?
Thousands of people die every day around the world from infections acquired while receiving health care.Hands are the main pathways of germ transmission...
15 January 2009
WHO guidelines on hand hygiene in health care
The WHO Guidelines on Hand Hygiene in Health Care provide health-care workers (HCWs), hospital administrators and health authorities with a thorough...
9 February 2009
A guide to the implementation of the WHO multimodal hand hygiene improvement strategy
WHO_IER_PSP_2009.02_chi.pdf (5.297Mb) WHO_IER_PSP_2009.02_per.pdf (1.857Mb)
The scope of this document is to address practical aspects related to the performance of routine hand hygiene while providing outpatient care. This document...
Key reminders
The Your 5 Moments for Hand Hygiene approach defines the key moments when health-care workers should perform hand hygiene.
This evidence-based, field-tested, user-centred approach is designed to be easy to learn, logical and applicable in a wide range of settings.
This approach recommends health-care workers to clean their hands:
- before touching a patient;
- before clean/aseptic procedures;
- after body fluid exposure/risk;
- after touching a patient; and
- after touching patient surroundings.
For more key reminders, please visit our hand hygiene page.
Resources