As part of a major global effort to improve hand hygiene in health care, led by WHO to support health-care workers, the SAVE LIVES: Clean Your Hands annual global campaign was launched in 2009 and is a natural extension of the WHO First Global Patient Safety Challenge: Clean Care is Safer Care work.

This year th focus is on how important cleaning your hands can be.

• Thousands of people die every day around the world from infections acquired while receiving health care.
• Hands are the main pathways of germ transmission during health care.
• Hand hygiene is therefore the most important measure to avoid the transmission of harmful germs and prevent health care-associated infections.

The campaign aims to galvanise action at the point of care to demonstrate that hand hygiene is the entrance door for reducing health care-associated infection and patient safety. It also aims to demonstrate the world’s commitment to this priority area of health care.

WHO SAVE LIVES: Clean Your Hands annual initiative is part of a major global effort led by the World Health Organization (WHO) to support health-care workers to improve hand hygiene in health care and thus support the prevention of often life threatening HAI.

The clear and central feature of Clean Care is Safer Care thus far has been to target efforts on the importance of clean hands in health care.  IT SAVE LIVES: Clean Your Hands was deemed a natural next phase of the Clean Care is Safer Care programme, moving the call to action from a country pledge of commitment to the point of patient care. The central core of SAVE LIVES: Clean Your Hands is that all health-care workers should clean their hands at the right time and in the right way.