Tribune News Network
Doha
The Ministry of Public Health (MoPH), in partnership with its collaborators, launched an awareness campaign to observe World Hand Hygiene Day, which falls on Sunday, May 5, under the theme ‘Why is sharing knowledge about hand hygiene still so important? Because it helps stop the spread of harmful germs in health care’.
The campaign aims to intensify awareness about the importance of hand hygiene for visitors to governmental, semi-governmental, and private health facilities through social media platforms, as well as through various awareness activities held on May 5 and 6.
The central theme of the 2024 awareness campaign focuses on promoting knowledge and capacity building for healthcare workers through innovative and impactful training and education on infection prevention and control (IPC), particularly hand hygiene.
The campaign seeks to enhance learning methodologies to facilitate the implementation of innovative and effective training, empowering healthcare workers to improve hand hygiene practices and prevent and control infections at the point of care.
Furthermore, the campaign aims to raise awareness about the significance of understanding hand hygiene practices and learning when and how to wash hands to prevent various infectious diseases. It also emphasises promoting mechanisms for measuring and evaluating the impact of training and education on IPC standards and practices, including hand hygiene, to prevent healthcare-associated infections (HAI) and antimicrobial resistance (AMR).
As part of the World Hand Hygiene Day celebration, the MoPH Infection Control and Prevention Team organised a training workshop on May 5, for all healthcare workers on the importance of hand hygiene, held at the Itqan Clinical Simulation and Innovation Centre in Hamad Bin Khalifa Medical City.
Hand hygiene, whether through washing or sanitising, is considered one of the most significant healthcare interventions, as it reduces the transmission of germs, including antibiotic-resistant strains, and healthcare-associated infections (HAIs), ultimately contributing to patient safety. Therefore, effective and timely hand hygiene practices are among the most critical measures in infection prevention and control (IPC).
