World Health Organization SAVE LIVES Research Articles

“It’s in your hands – prevent sepsis in health care”; 5 May 2018 World Health Organization (WHO) SAVE LIVES: Clean Your Hands campaign

“It’s in your hands – prevent sepsis in health care”; 5 May 2018 World Health Organization (WHO) SAVE LIVES: Clean Your Hands campaign

“It’s in your hands – prevent sepsis in health care”; 5 May 2018 World Health Organization (WHO) SAVE LIVES: Clean Your Hands campaign

“It’s in your hands – prevent sepsis in health care”; 5 May 2018 World Health Organization (WHO) SAVE LIVES: Clean Your Hands campaign

“It's in your hands—prevent sepsis in health care”; May 5 2018 World Health Organization SAVE LIVES: Clean Your Hands campaign

“It's in your hands—prevent sepsis in health care”; May 5 2018 World Health Organization SAVE LIVES: Clean Your Hands campaign

“It's in your hands – Prevent sepsis in health care”; 5th May 2018 World Health Organization (WHO) SAVE LIVES: Clean Your Hands campaign

“It's in your hands – Prevent sepsis in health care”; 5th May 2018 World Health Organization (WHO) SAVE LIVES: Clean Your Hands campaign

‘It's in your hands – prevent sepsis in health care’: 5th May 2018, World Health Organization (WHO) SAVE LIVES: Clean Your Hands campaign

‘It's in your hands – prevent sepsis in health care’: 5th May 2018, World Health Organization (WHO) SAVE LIVES: Clean Your Hands campaign

World Health Organization SAVE LIVES: Clean Your Hands global campaign—‘Fight antibiotic resistance—it's in your hands'

World Health Organization SAVE LIVES: Clean Your Hands global campaign—‘Fight antibiotic resistance—it's in your hands'

WHO SAVE LIVES: Clean Your Hands global annual campaign. A call for action: 5 May 2011

The World Health Organization (WHO) SAVE LIVES: Clean Your Hands was launched in 2009. This global, annual campaign was developed as an extension of the WHO Clean Care is Safer Care programme. It is targeted at healthcare facilities and has the aim of ‘Bringing people together to improve and sustain hand hygiene’ every 5 May. WHO’s motivation has been, and continues to be, in response to the concerns over the global burden of disease due to healthcare-associated infections (HAI), both in developed and developing countries [1]. Recentlypublished data collated by WHO highlight that, when known, HAI rates are, indeed, markedly higher in developing countries than developed countries, with up to 19% of patients estimated to acquire an HAI hospitalwide. Surgical site infections are known to be the most frequent in these countries and can occur at rates of up to 25% of all surgical procedures. For ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP) and neonatal infections, the rates are equally as alarming. VAP occurs up to 17 times more frequently in developing than in developed countries, with an excess mortality rate as high as 27%. Neonatal infections are three to 20 times higher and are responsible for 4–56% of all deaths in the neonatal period. The costs to healthcare systems are also well recognised, particularly in the developed world [2, 3]. In its first 2 years, WHO SAVE LIVES: Clean Your Hands has, on each 5 May, galvanised unprecedented action, including the receipt of online written commitment from 5,000 healthcare facilities in 2009, subsequently totalling over 11,000 in 2010, well exceeding the 10,000 expectation (see Fig. 1). This corroborates the understanding that hand hygiene practices are seen at the core of addressing HAI, but can still be improved [4]. Actions taken in both 2009 and 2010 demonstrate how eager healthcare workers are to ensure real change is made at the point of care to enhance patient safety and reduce HAI. To begin the move from demonstrating commitment to taking action, in 2010, a global survey of hand hygiene compliance with Moment 1 of the WHO ‘My 5 Moments for Hand Hygiene’, ‘Before touching a patient’, was announced by WHO, the first of its kind. Approximately one-third of all healthcare facilities that had already registered for SAVE LIVES: Clean Your Hands took part in this survey and the results have been presented as per the six WHO regions, as well as individual participants receiving feedback on their own data [5]. To build momentum and maintain a global profile on the need for clean hands in healthcare, for 5 May 2011, the aim is clear; ‘move from commitment to sustained action on hand hygiene improvement’. The WHO’s call is ‘Where do YOU stand on hand hygiene?’ and the WHO Hand Hygiene Self-Assessment Framework is being promoted to help the understanding of this. All registered healthcare facilities around the globe For full information on WHO SAVE LIVES: Clean Your Hands, visit http://www.who.int/gpsc/5may.