Wash your hands! That bit of advice, along with Wear a mask and Watch your distance (6 feet), could stop a pandemic and save thousands of lives by preventing COVID-19 infections and deaths.
Hand hygiene, along with masks and social distancing, are proven behaviours that prevent the transmission of COVID-19.
“I cannot stress enough the importance of observing Covid-appropriate behaviours of the 3Ws (Wear a Mask, Wash your hands, Watch your distance – stay 6 feet apart), and the 3Cs (Avoid Crowded places, Close contact settings, and Confined and enclosed spaces). Public health and social measures to control all variants of the COVID-19 virus remain the same, so Covid-appropriate behaviours, along with continuing to test, track, treat and vaccination are critical to end the pandemic,” said Dr Roderico H Ofrin, WHO Representative to India.
Long before the COVID-19 pandemic focused attention on hand hygiene as a key intervention in the global war against the pandemic virus and its variants, handwashing was established cornerstone of infection prevention
and control in health care settings and prevention of respiratory and diarrhoeal diseases.
The World Hand Hygiene Day (WHHD) on 5 May reiterates the importance of cleaning hands to save lives by not just following good hygiene practices in hospitals, clinics and health care centres but everywhere, whether it is at the workplace, at home, in transit or in social settings.
Healthcare-associated infections take a high toll in human lives and affect hundreds of millions of patients worldwide each year. This year’s WHHD theme re-emphasises ‘Seconds save lives – clean your
hands!’ at the point of care, where handwashing is a critical tool for infection prevention and control.
Hand hygiene is fundamental to improving patient safety and treatment outcomes by reducing health care-associated infection and the spread of antimicrobial resistance. In doing so, hand hygiene along with availability of safe water and sanitation contributes to the provision of quality healthcare services and helps meet Sustainable Development Goal 3.8 to achieve universal health coverage.