SAVE LIVES: Clean Your Hands

INTRODUCTION
SAVE LIVES: Clean Your Hands is part of a major global effort led by the World Health Organization (WHO), to support health-care workers to improve hand hygiene and thus stop...


the spread of life-threatening, health care-associated infection (HCAI)

In October 2005, the WHO Patient Safety team launched the First Global Patient Safety Challenge, ‘Clean Care is Safer Care’.

Clean Care is Safer Care promotes existing WHO strategies related to Clean Environment, Clean Equipment, Clean Practices and Clean Products. The clear and central feature of Clean Care is Safer Care was to target effort on the importance of clean hands in health care.

The clean hands component was formally launched as the initial focus of the First Challenge in 2005.

As at January 2009, Ministers of Health from 116 countries had signed pledges of commitment to work with the WHO Guidelines on Hand Hygiene in Health Care (see document to right) to reduce HCAI.

SAVE LIVES: Clean Your Hands is a natural next phase of the Clean Care is Safer Care Challenge, moving the call to action from a pledge of commitment to the point of care.
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