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  WHO > Programmes and projects > Clean Care is Safer Care > SAVE LIVES: Clean Your Hands

SAVE LIVES: Clean Your Hands

Picture of hand cleansing with water and hand rub

Hand hygiene is the primary measure to reduce health care-associated infection

Launched 5 May 2009, the SAVE LIVES: Clean Your Hands initiative aims to support health-care workers to improve hand hygiene and stop the spread of infection.

  • Be part of a global movement to improve hand hygiene;
  • Join the network of countries that already have hand hygiene campaigns operating;
  • Help fight HAI in your country;
  • Use the WHO toolkit to improve hand hygiene compliance and have access to other updates and resources from WHO Patient Safety;
  • Share your knowledge and successes with others
  • Make patient safety Your No 1 priority.

Sign up!
5801
hospitals in 125 countries and territories have already registered!

Register your support now!

Enlarge map [jpg 177kb]

Registration update

Graph showing cumulative total of registrants [gif 40kb]

Chart showing regional spread of registrants [gif 16kb]

Country pledge videos
Sweden | Vietnam

5 May events
Events took place around the world on and around 5 May to initiate SAVE LIVES: Clean Your Hands.
See all events

Welcome message

Professor Didier Pittet, MD, MS
University of Geneva Hospitals and Faculty of Medicine

Tools and resources
Tools and resources
WHO Multimodal Hand Hygiene Improvement Strategy.

The World Health Organization (WHO) Patient Safety team has provided a suite of tools to support health-care facilities to prepare effective Action Plans to improve hand hygiene, regardless of their starting point.

My 5 Moments for Hand Hygiene
My 5 Moments for Hand Hygiene
Learn more about the evidence-
based approach of the key moments for hand hygiene in healthcare.


SITE CONTENT

About Save Lives: Clean Your Hands
About SAVE LIVES: Clean Your Hands

Tools and resources
Tools and resources
WHO Multimodal Hand Hygiene Improvement Strategy

Share knowledge and practice
Share your knowledge and practice


NEWS

Updates from SAVE LIVES
VIDEO

Play video
Hand hygiene [wmv 01:13]

Also available in 5 other languages

More video


KEY DOCUMENTS

Hand hygiene guidelines cover
WHO Guidelines on Hand Hygiene in Health Care (revised Aug 2009)
Full version [pdf 4.26Mb]
Summary now available [pdf 2.22Mb]

Guide to implementation cover
Guide to implementation of the WHO multimodal hand hygiene improvement strategy (revised Aug 2009)
Download [pdf 465Kb]