Hand Hygiene

Step 1: Brainstorm, in a group or by yourself, on the following questions: 'What is Hygiene? What is Hand Hygiene?'
Step 2: After 10 minutes, share your answers or write them down, and set-up a working answer for both the questions above.
Step 3: Then try and fill the What, Why, When, Where, Who and How matrix within your group.
Step 4: After completing the task, share your reflections with your group.

Hygiene: refers to conditions and practices that help to maintain health and prevent spread of diseases. (Source: WHO)
Hand Hygiene: a general term referring to any action of hand-washing/cleaning, that is, the action of performing hand hygiene for the purpose of physically or mechanically removing dirt, organic material, and/or microorganisms. (Source: WHO guidelines on hand hygiene in health care. 2009)

WHY HAND HYGIENE?

Saves lives:

Access to hand hygiene in health care facilities, schools, public places and homes is essential to protect global health and reduce the risk of future outbreaks.
Scaling up (highlighting the importance of) hand hygiene could potentially prevent an estimated 165,000 deaths from diarrhoeal diseases each year.
Scientific evidence and experience from WHO has also shown that improving hand hygiene strategies in health care can reduce health care-associated infection and antimicrobial resistance (happens when germs like bacteria and fungi develop the ability to defeat the drugs designed to kill them).

Saves money:

Hand hygiene is also one of the most cost-effective ways to prevent the spread of infectious diseases.

Preparing for the future:

Hand hygiene was key to stopping the spread of COVID-19 – but smart investments now will also prepare us better for any future outbreaks/diseases.
Hand hygiene also protects against a range of other diseases, including common colds, flu, diarrhoea and pneumonia etc

(Source: Hand Hygiene for All-2020, Unicef)