WHO Bangladesh has supported the development of updated guidelines on infection prevention and control (IPC) and biosafety for health care providers and held a series of workshops to train health managers, clinicians, nurses and laboratory staff on the new guidelines. The guidelines focus on measures to ensure patient safety as well as the safety of health care and laboratory personnel. Workshops were held in eight centres in Dhaka, including three public medical college hospitals and five private hospitals. Furthermore, a series of two-day orientation workshops were held in six institutes outside of Dhaka, including two public and four private hospitals.
During the orientation workshops, participants discussed issues of hospital preparedness, access to safe water supplies, adequacy of washing facilities, accessibility and regular supply of hand hygiene materials for care providers, coordination between cleaning staff and hospital administration, hospital waste management systems and monitoring and supervision of IPC practices.
In total, 1042 physicians and 552 nursing staff from five public medical colleges/institutes and 11 private hospitals were trained on the new infection control and biosafety guidelines. This training and orientation will help strengthen infection prevention control and biosafety in hospitals across Bangladesh.