Personal hygiene Hygiene is multi-faceted and comprises many behaviours, including hand- and face washing, menstrual hygiene and food hygiene. Hand washing with soap at crucial events such as after visiting the toilet, defecating or before preparing food was estimated to be a poorly practised behaviour globally. Safe drinking-water, sanitation and hygiene are crucial to human health and well-being.

Understanding the Context

Safe WASH is not only a prerequisite to health, but contributes to livelihoods, school attendance and dignity and helps to create resilient communities living in healthy environments. Hand hygiene and IPC best practices are also affected by the built environment including lack of water, sanitation, waste management and hygiene (WASH), which also impact equity and dignity among both those providing and receiving care . In 2026 IPC action including hand hygiene, is critical now more than ever. Most HAIs are preventable through hand hygiene performed at the right times.

Key Insights

The WHO Guidelines on hand hygiene in health care outline hand hygiene recommendations and are complemented by the WHO Multimodal hand hygiene improvement strategy, the Guide to implementation, and an implementation toolkit, which contains many ready-to-use practical ... Hand hygiene is therefore the most important measure to avoid the transmission of harmful germs and prevent health care-associated infections. This brochure explains how and when to practice hand hygiene. World Health Organization's communication leaflet on water, sanitation, and hygiene for 2024, providing guidelines and recommendations for better health practices. Water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) Water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) Drinking-water encompasses water used for drinking, cooking and personal hygiene.

Final Thoughts

Water safety and quality are fundamental to human development and well-being. Providing access to safe water is one of the most effective instruments in promoting health and reducing poverty. Regardless of whether gloves are worn, hand hygiene at the right times and in the right way is still one of the most important measures to protect patients and health workers in healthcare. By 2026, hand hygiene compliance monitoring and feedback should be established as a key national indicator, at the very least in all reference hospitals. Currently 68% of countries report they are doing this.