World Hand Hygiene Day 2021: History, theme and significance of this day and messages to share
The theme for World Hand Hygiene Day 2021 is Achieving hand hygiene at the point of care. The slogan is, Seconds save lives â clean your hands! Image for representation, Twitter
Updated: May 5, 2021, 07:02 AM IST
May 5 is observed as the World Hand Hygiene Day and this is like the last, this day holds a lot of significance in our lives as we are grappling with the COVID-19 pandemic. Clean Your Hands global campaign, launched in 2009 and celebrated annually on 5 May (World Hand Hygiene Day) aims to maintain global promotion, visibility and sustainability of hand hygiene in health care and to ‘bring people together’ in support of hand hygiene improvement around the world.
The World Health Organization (WHO) highlights the urgent need to reduce inequalities in the availability of good hand hygiene and other infection prevention and control measures between high and lower income countries.
This is indicated in WHO’s latest global survey on implementation of national infection prevention and control programmes. A new WHO online monitoring portal is said will help countries identify and address gaps, according to the press statement by WHO.
This is a serious challenge at any time, but COVID-19 has dramatically demonstrated just how important good hand hygiene practices are in reducing the risk of transmission, when used as part of a comprehensive package of preventative measures.
On World Hand Hygiene Day 2021, WHO/Europe calls on decision-makers, hospital managers and health-care workers to enable and adopt effective hand hygiene at the point of care. Across the WHO European Region, on any given day, about 80 000 – or approximately 1 in 18 – patients have at least 1 health-care-associated infection in a hospital.
A Reminder On The Importance Of Hand Hygiene
By
The simple slogan for this year “Seconds save lives – clean your hands!”
The WHO is calling on healthcare workers and facilities to prioritise effective hand hygiene action at “the point of care”.
The point of care refers to the place where three elements come together: the patient, the health care worker, and care or treatment involving contact with the patient or their surroundings.
As we ease out of lockdown here in the UK, however, it’s a timely reminder about the importance of good hand hygiene in general. Washing hands properly is shown to be an effective measure to stop the spread of Covid-19 (along with wearing masks and physical distancing).