World Hand Hygiene Day - why I continue to promote this campaign (by Claire Kilpatrick)

Summary

Dr Claire Kilpatrick is a consultant to the World Health Organization (WHO) and has co-led on World Hand Hygiene Day since its launch. In this blog, Claire explains why she has always been actively involved in the campaign and what it means for patient safety. 

Content

World Hand Hygiene Day (WHHD) is a global campaign commemorated on 5 May every year, sharing targeted calls to action to support safer healthcare. Today marks its 18th year, and I have been privileged to be part of this campaign since its conception. So why do I continue to be an active supporter?

The threat to patient safety

Health care-associated infections, which are avoidable infections, continue to be a daily potential threat to patients in every hospital and clinic.

Health care-associated infections:

• contribute to the antimicrobial resistance (AMR) burden
• cause immense suffering to patients, families and health workers
• can cause premature death and disability
• result in higher health care costs
• and hamper efforts to achieve high-quality care for all.

Preventing harm

A substantial proportion of these could, however, be prevented if hand hygiene and other infection prevention and control (IPC) actions were taken at the correct times. IPC and hand hygiene action provide a high return on investment within health system expenditure and have a significant positive effect on health outcomes for all countries.

Hand hygiene and IPC best practices continue to be compromised by a substandard-built environment, including where inadequate provision of clean water, lack of effective sanitation, waste management and hygiene exist. We are seeing more of these issues arise - and not just in low and middle income countries but across some settings in high income countries where sanitation is a challenge.

For WHHD 5 May 2026, the World Health Organization (WHO) has called on all those providing and supporting health care to refresh their action on hand hygiene and IPC, to ensure patient and health worker safety – because Action saves lives, as this year’s campaign slogan goes.

Share your WHHD actions

WHO supports campaign efforts every year by issuing a range of resources. Anyone can take part in the campaign using these or their own resources.

And there is a way you can share your actions, either here on the hub (by commenting below – sign up first for free) or in the WHO IPC community of practice. Every year I collate examples from around the world and present them in the webinars!

Action really does save lives - we can all be a part of WHHD.