World Hand Hygiene Day 2024: Date, history, significance and all that you need to know

World Hand Hygiene Day 2024: Hands can be the carrier of germs and diseases.

When we do not wash our hands properly and maintain hygiene, they can lead to severe diseases and illnesses. It is important to understand the impact of diseases that can spread through hands and arms. A few years back, COVID-19 grappled the world and put it in lockdown for months. We are still surviving the aftermath of the pandemic.

Hands were an important carrier of the COVID-19 virus. Washing hands and maintaining hand hygiene were an important protocol that was advised to be followed by everyone during the COVID-19 pandemic as well. Maintaining hand hygiene is extremely important for wellbeing, and every year, World Hand Hygiene Day is observed to urge people to follow the same. As we gear up to celebrate the special day, here are a few things that we must keep in mind.

Date:
Every year, World Hand Hygiene Day is observed on May 5. This year, World Hand Hygiene Day falls on Sunday.

History:
As an attempt to improve hand hygiene, especially led by WHO healthcare professionals, the annual campaign of Save Lives: Clean your hands was launched by the World Health Organisation in 2009. Since then, every year, World Hand Hygiene Day is observed on May 5.

Significance:
“Save Lives: Clean Your Hands incorporates a global annual day to focus on the importance of improving hand hygiene in health care with WHO providing support for these efforts. A suite of hand hygiene improvement tools and materials have been created from a base of existing research and evidence and from rigorous testing, as well as working closely with a range of experts in the field. The tools aim to help the translation into practice of a multimodal strategy for improving and sustaining hand hygiene in health care,” wrote the World Health Organisation on their official website.