For World Hand Hygiene Day (May 5) 2026, the World Health Organization calls on those providing and supporting healthcare to refresh their action on hand hygiene and infection prevention and control (IPC), to ensure patient and health worker safety.

A substantial proportion of avoidable infections acquired during healthcare delivery could be prevented if hand hygiene and IPC action are taken at the appropriate time. Such action provides a high return on investment within health system expenditure and a significant positive effect on health outcomes for countries.

This is the 18th year of World Hand Hygiene Day. The WHO said that even in the harshest of settings, every effort ought to be made to enable hand hygiene, to protect and saves lives.

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Published on May 4, 2026