The World Health Organization (WHO) Guidelines on Hand Hygiene in Health Care,launched in 2009, provide healthcare workers, hospital administrators and health authoritieswith a review of evidence on hand hygiene in health care and specific recommendations toimprove practices and reduce transmission of pathogenic microorganisms to patients and HCWs. They are intended to be implemented in any situation in which health care is delivered either to a patient or to a specific group in a population. Therefore, this concept applies to all settings where health care is permanently or even occasionally performed, such as home care by birth attendants. These Guidelines and the associated WHO Multimodal Hand Hygiene Improvement Strategy and an Implementation Toolkit are designed to offer healthcare facilities a conceptual framework and practical tools for the application of recommendations in practice at the bedside. While ensuring consistency with the Guidelines’ recommendations, individual adaptation according to local regulations, settings, needs, and resources is desirable.
