SAVE LIVES: Clean Your Hands 5 May 2017
'Fight antibiotic resistance - it's in your hands'

WHO urges you to focus on the fight against antibiotic resistance in the context of hand hygiene and infection prevention and control (IPC) programmes. You can do this by supporting the 5 May 2017 calls to action. Hand hygiene is at the core of effective IPC to combat antibiotic resistance, and campaigning each year on or around 5 May is one important part of improving behaviour towards IPC best practices. This year the campaign materials are all co-branded with ‘Antibiotics, handle with care’ to demonstrate unity between antimicrobial resistance and IPC efforts.
Who we want action to be taken by:
- we want health workers to clean their hands at the right times, building on hand hygiene improvement efforts made up to now;
- we want chief executive officers and managers to support hand hygiene campaigning and infection prevention and control programmes, to protect patients from antibiotic-resistant infections;
- we want IPC leaders to lead hand hygiene campaigning and start their journey of meeting the core components for infection prevention and control;
- we want policy makers to stop antibiotic resistance spread by demonstrating national support and commitment to infection prevention.
Resources for 5 May 2017
Low resolution posters
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Advocacy
pdf, 5.01Mb -
Policy makers
pdf, 4.89Mb -
Hosiptal CEOs and Administrators
pdf, 4.85Mb -
Health workers
pdf, 4.88Mb -
IPC Leaders
pdf, 4.96Mb
Use the existing tools
Many WHO tools already exist that can also support your campaign efforts. They can be found here:
- Core components of infection prevention and control programmes at the national and acute health care facility level
- My 5 Moments for Hand Hygiene posters focused on the importance of prevention spread of MDROs
- A focus on caring for patients with invasive devices or having undergone procedures
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Information for patients and consumers
pdf, 263kb -
A literature review of multidrug-resistant organisms (MDROs) and their relationship with hand hygiene
pdf, 316kb - Recommendations for surgical site infection prevention, which include appropriate surgical antibiotic prophylaxis prescribing