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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Current evidence indicates that the COVID-19 virus is transmitted through respiratory droplets or contact. Contact transmission occurs when contaminated hands touch the mucosa of the mouth, nose, or eyes; the virus can also be transferred from one surface to another by contaminated hands, which fac...ilitates indirect contact transmission. Consequently, hand hygiene is extremely important to prevent the spread of the COVID-19 virus. It also interrupts transmission of other viruses and bacteria causing common colds, flu and pneumonia, thus reducing the general burden of disease.
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WHO recommends member states provide universal access to public hand hygiene stations and making their use obligatory on entering and leaving any public or private commercial building and any public transport facility. It is also recommended that healthcare facilities improve access to and practice ...of hand hygiene.
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Hygiene advice in English, Turkish, Arabic, French and Russian Information in your language
By taking just a few simple measures, you can help protect yourself and others against infectious diseases. Find key hygiene tips here in your language.
Die Infografik "Infektionen vorbeugen: Die 10 wichtig...sten Hygienetipps" der Bundeszentrale für gesundheitliche Aufklärung (BZgA) gibt einen Überblick über einfache persönliche Hygienemaßnahmen, um sich und andere vor ansteckenden Infektionskrankheiten zu schützen. Das Plakat ist in sieben Sprachen verfügbar.
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Online Resouce with guidelines, posters, e-learning courses for healthcare settings and community health
International Journal for Quality in Health Care, 2018, 30(9), 724–730
Promoting hand hygiene in a neonatal intensive care unit.
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 hygiene and the critical elements of hand hygiene needed to improve qua...lity 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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Accessed 3rd of October 2015
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).
A Guide to the Application of the WHO Multimodal Hand HygieneImprovement Strategy and the “My Five Moments for Hand Hygiene”Αpproach
This poster simply says wash your hands in twenty-four languages (English, Amharic, Arabic, Burmese, Chinese (Mandarin), French, German, Hebrew, Hindi, Hmong, Karen, Khmer, Korean, Laotian, Nepali, Oromo, Ojibwe, Russian, Somali, Spanish, Swahili, Thai, and Vietnamese).
A manual to train health-care workers on practising, teaching and observing hand hygiene.
A guide to help you create an Action Plan specific for your health-care facility
Recommendations of the Healthcare Infection Control Practices Advisory Committee and the HICPAC/SHEA/APIC/IDSA Hand Hygiene Task Force
9 Dec 2020
Available in English, Afrikaans, isiXhosa
Updated 25 March 2020 (25 Matshi 2020)