October 15 is Global Handwashing Day, a global advocacy day dedicated to increasing awareness and understanding about the importance of handwashing. The SAVE LIVES: Clean Your Hands global campaign, launched in 2009 and celebrated annually on 5 May (World Hand Hygiene Day) aims to maintain global promotion, visibility and sustainability of hand hygiene in health care and to ‘bring people together’ in support of hand hygiene improvement around the world. WHO calls on health care workers and facilities to achieve effective hand hygiene action at the point of care. The point of care refers to the place where three elements come together: the patient, the health care worker, and care or treatment involving contact with the patient or their surroundings. To be effective and prevent transmission of infectious microorganisms during health care delivery, hand hygiene should be performed when it is needed (at 5 specific moments) and in the most effective way (by using the right technique with readily available products) at the point of care. This can be achieved by using the WHO multimodal hand hygiene improvement strategy.

FORUM: “Clean hands are within reach.” Global Handwashing Day 2023. Recent years have seen a rise in hand hygiene commitment and action. While great strides have been made, the world must triple its current efforts to achieve global hand hygiene targets. The campaign says, “Through strong leadership and collective efforts, we can close gaps in access and practice to achieve hand hygiene for all. Everyone has a role to play to ensure clean hands are within reach.” The panel discussion, “Unite for Universal Hand Hygiene,” calls for collective action. This community forum serves as a conversational space that curates, collects, and maintains resources, blogs, and content for Global Handwashing Day. Follow the conversation with the hashtags: #HandHygiene, #Cleanhandsarewithinreach, #GlobalHandwashingDay.

Campaign theme: Together, we can accelerate action to prevent infections and antimicrobial resistance in health care and build a culture of safety and quality in which hand hygiene improvement is given high priority.

Campaign objectives:

• Strengthen and empower communities of actors in health care to accelerate action to improve hand hygiene and infection prevention and control at point of care.

• Foster collaboration and working together of people and organizations towards the common goal of minimizing the risk of infections and the development of antimicrobial resistance in health care.

EVENTS: On October 15th; The World Health Organization (WHO), the Pan-american Health Organization (PAHO), the WHO African Regional Office, the WHO Europe, the WHO EMRO, the WHO SEARO, the WHO WPRO and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) held a webinar to mark the Global Handwashing Day 2023 to Unite, talk and work together on hand hygiene for high quality safer care everywhere.

A hybrid event to mark the 2023 Global handwashing day annual event. was held on Wednesday, October 11th, from 8:00 AM EDT - 12:00 1:30 pm UTC. to hear what others are doing to ensure hand hygiene progress at the global, national, and individual levels. Register to participate!