“Together for Health: Stand with Science”

The theme for hand hygiene in 2026, supported by health organizations, focuses on the slogan: “Together for Health: Stand with Science.”

For 2026, the theme emphasizes sustainability and the evolution of habits in the digital era, with special attention to environmental protection and innovation.

The main directions of this year’s campaigns include:

• “Together for Health: Supporting science for better public health”: This highlights the importance of scientific evidence in everyday hygiene practices.
• Sustainable hygiene: Campaigns focus on reducing waste from protective equipment (such as gloves) and its impact on climate change.
• Digitalization and monitoring: Integration of smart devices to track the quality and frequency of handwashing in public institutions.

The WHO calls on everyone to be inspired by the global movement to achieve universal health coverage (UHC), meaning better health and well-being for all people at all ages, including protection from financial risk, access to quality essential healthcare services, and access to safe, effective, quality, and affordable essential medicines and vaccines for all.

Infection prevention and control, including hand hygiene, is crucial for achieving UHC, as it is a practical, evidence-based approach with proven impact on quality of care and patient safety at all levels of the health system.

Promoting knowledge and building the capacity of healthcare workers through innovative and impactful training and education for infection prevention and control, including hand hygiene.

Why is sharing knowledge about hand hygiene still so important?

Because it helps stop the spread of harmful bacteria in healthcare settings.

Strengthening learning approaches to enable the implementation of innovative and effective training that encourages healthcare workers and caregivers to improve hand hygiene and infection prevention and control (IPC) at the point of care through increased knowledge, skills, and behaviors.

Promote access to innovative training resources on hand hygiene and IPC for healthcare workers and associates.

Raise awareness about the importance of timely knowledge and learning on hand hygiene to prevent a range of infectious diseases.

Encourage measurement and evaluation mechanisms to assess the impact of training and education on IPC standards and practices, including hand hygiene, as well as their effect on preventing healthcare-associated infections (HAIs) and antimicrobial resistance (AMR).

Healthcare Workers:

The compliance and consistency of healthcare workers in practicing hand hygiene are considered the gold standard in preventing hospital infections. Although awareness is high, global statistics show that, on average, healthcare workers disinfect their hands in about 40% to 60% of situations where it is necessary.

Key aspects of this compliance:

1. WHO’s “Five Moments”

The key to good compliance is adherence to the five critical moments defined by the World Health Organization:

• Before touching a patient
• Before a clean/aseptic procedure
• After risk of exposure to body fluids
• After touching a patient
• After touching the patient’s surroundings

2. Differences by profession and department

Research often shows variations in compliance:

• Nurses usually have higher compliance due to more frequent direct patient care
• Physicians sometimes show lower frequency of disinfection between examinations, which is a focus of many new training programs
• The highest compliance (over 80%) is found in intensive care units, where infection risk is most critical

3. Challenges to full compliance

Main reasons why 100% compliance is not achieved include:

• Work overload: large number of patients in a short time
• Skin irritation: frequent use of disinfectants can damage the skin if high-quality emollient products are not used
• Resource availability: need for disinfectant dispensers at every point of care

4. The role of monitoring

In 2026, compliance is increasingly measured through digital monitoring systems (e.g., dispenser sensors) rather than only direct observation, helping to remind workers of this important habit in real time.

5. Conclusion:

Hand hygiene is not just an individual decision, but a responsibility of the entire healthcare system. Every healthcare worker who regularly washes their hands directly contributes to shorter hospital stays and lower patient mortality.

“A medical intervention that costs almost nothing, yet has the power to halve the rate of hospital infections. Our participation in this process is a measure of the quality of care we provide. Let clean hands become our reflex, not an obligation.”

Prepared by: Department for Health Promotion and Disease Surveillance