Global estimates had it that one in every four health facilities worldwide lacks even the most basic access to water supplies, and one in every three does not have hand hygiene facilities at the point of care.
World Health Organization Regional Director for Africa, Dr. Matshidiso Moeti said this situation is even direr in Africa, where half of all health care facilities do not have basic water access.
Dr. Moeti noted in his message to celebrate this year’s world hygiene day that Good practices on hand hygiene need to be expanded and sustained to build a culture of compliance, to ultimately improve the well-being of all people in the African Region.
Adding that a holistic approach is needed by both public-private partners to enhance collaboration, investment, and maintenance of infrastructure for safe water, sanitation, and hygiene in the Region.
“Evidence shows us that effective infection prevention and control measures, including hand hygiene, could reduce healthcare-associated infections by more than half while boosting newborn survival rates by as much as 44%.
Correct, frequent hand hygiene also plays a significant role in the fight against epidemics and pandemics, as we have seen from the response to COVID-19 and cholera, as well as the burgeoning threat of anti-microbial resistance.
WHO has developed and disseminated hand hygiene in health care guidelines to Member States and facilities, and offered technical guidance in the implementation of monitoring tools in countries in the African Region. Additionally, WHO in the African Region has supported the improvement of hand hygiene practices through awareness campaigns in the Member States, the training of more than 200 000 health workers since the onset of COVID-19, and the provision of WASH infrastructural support to multiple facilities. Technical guidance on local production of Alcohol-Based Hand Rub (ABHR), and scaling up existing efforts, has been conducted in the Member States.
Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene (WASH), and hand hygiene measures, are a fundamental part of the WHO’s Infection, Prevention and Control (IPC) minimum requirements. The Regional IPC strategic plan includes the implementation of these minimum requirements in all countries in the region, with a view to boosting future resilience.
More financial resources are required in most African countries to achieve universal access to water, sanitation and hygiene services by 2030, and research on the socio-economic burden of healthcare-associated infections in African countries is also needed.”
World Hand Hygiene Day is marked every 5th of May, as this year’s theme, “Unite for Safety – Clean Your Hands” is aimed at strengthening the culture of handwashing, while raising awareness of the effective and affordable way to help prevent the spread of diseases, thus focusing on health facilities, with a call to all health workers, patients, and their family members to achieve high quality, safer care.
