Hand Hygiene Day 2020: Practising hand hygiene can save lives! May 5 is observed by the World Health Organisation (WHO) as the Hand Hygiene Day and for this year, the nodal global health agency has aligned the theme for the occasion – “Save Lives: Clean your hands” – with the WHO’s “Year of Nurses and Midwives” and kept the theme as “Nurses and Midwives, clean care is in your hands”. The aim of the Hand Hygiene Day is to encourage people globally to maintain hand hygiene in healthcare facilities for the safety of healthcare workers as well as patients.
This year, the occasion is meant to recognise nurses and midwives as the frontline defense against diseases and aims to bring to light their crucial role in prevention of infections.
According to the WHO website, the main goal of the International Hand Hygiene Day is to make people aware of the fact that washing hands is one of the most important defence against pathogens and consequent infections, including the ongoing COVID-19. The global health agency states that people of the world along with the healthcare workers and together play important roles in prevention of spread of diseases, simply by washing their hands at frequent and regular intervals.
For the occasion in 2020, the WHO and its partner organisations have three aims:
- To make hand hygiene a priority worldwide
- To inspire hand hygiene and a change in behaviour
- To engage with healthcare professionals and discuss their role in providing clean care and prevention of infections
Apart from that, according to the WHO, hand hygiene is also a way to call attention of policymakers towards the need for provision of safe working conditions and environment for nurses and healthcare workers. It also aims to urge infection prevention and control leaders to enable midwives and nurses in providing clean healthcare conditions to the patients.