The World Health Organization (WHO) has praised the Kingdom’s outstanding experience in implementing the hand hygiene program, as one of the most successful examples in the world. This came in a report published on its official website on the occasion of the World Hand Hygiene Day, which is held on May 5 of each year under the theme “Celebrating hand hygiene success around the world”.
In 2009, following the launch of WHO’s SAVE LIVES: Clean Your Hands campaign, the Kingdom launched a national hand hygiene program. Since then, the country has made significant improvements in hand hygiene and infection prevention, and control.
In 2019 the Council of Ministers recognized hand hygiene as the most important intervention to reduce healthcare-associated infections with the highest possible level of national legislation. This meant mandating the practice of hand hygiene for health practitioners, requiring all healthcare facilities to use WHO’s tools to evaluate compliance, and directing all health sectors to launch and intensify hand hygiene educational programs in healthcare facilities.
An extensive network of hand hygiene coordinators has been comprehensively trained, providing that each healthcare facility must have at least one hand hygiene coordinator whether it is a hospital, primary healthcare center, dental center, or dialysis center. In the first quarter of 2022, the Kingdom had more than 2,100 registered hand hygiene coordinators.