Overview:
- October 15th is Global Handwashing Day, dedicated to raising awareness and understanding importance of handwashing with soap as an effective and inexpensive way to prevent disease and save lives.
- Global Handwashing Day is an opportunity to design, test and iterate creative ways to encourage people to wash their hands with soap at critical times.
- This new and unprecedented situation provides a unique incentive to make hand hygiene an essential component of health and safety in organizations.
- Last year lessons emphasized the need for collective action to permanently address historical neglect of hand hygiene investments, policies and programs. As we enter a new normal status after COVID-19, our future is closer at hand. This year's theme, 'Our future is at hand - let's move forward together', calls for coordinated action as we actively work towards hand hygiene globally.
The goal of Global Handwashing Day is to remind people around the world of the need to adhere to hand hygiene in healthcare facilities and others, thus protecting healthcare workers and patients from risks of transmission, and is celebrated annually on October 15 of each year, and the main goal of Global Handwashing Day is to realize that hand washing is one of the most effective measures we can take to reduce spread of pathogens and prevent infection, including emerging (Corona) virus, and health workers and community members alike can play a role in preventing infection, by practicing regular hand washing.
Objectives:
- Awareness of the importance of hand washing in preventing diseases and spread of infection.
- Making hand hygiene a global priority.
- Engagement with health care workers in their role in clean care and infection prevention.
Facts:
- People often touch their eyes, noses and mouths spontaneously without care; This leads to contamination of hands with germs, and transmission of infection to others, if hand hygiene neglected.
- Cleanliness and disinfection of hands reduces respiratory diseases such as colds by 16-21%.
- Washing hands with soap can reduce incidence of gastroenteritis to 23-40%.
- Absenteeism rates among school students as a result of gastroenteritis reduces by 29% to 57%.
- Gastroenteritis among immunocompromised patients reduces to 58%.
Official date:
Globally: October 15th, 2022
Locally: Rabi-Awal 19, 1444 H
Slogan:
"Our Future is at Hand - Let's Move Forward Together,"
References:
- Global Hand Washing Day
- MOH – World Health Days