“It's in your hands — prevent sepsis in health care”; World Health Organization SAVE LIVES: Clean Your Hands campaign
Authors: H. Saito, T. Borzykowski, C. Kilpatrick, D. Pires, B. Allegranzi, D. Pittet
Journal: Clinical Microbiology and Infection (2018)

Sepsis is a life-threatening organ dysfunction caused by a dysregulated host response to infection [[1]Singer M. Deutschman C.S. Seymour C.W. Shankar-Hari M. Annane D. Bauer M. et al.The third international consensus definitions for sepsis and septic shock (Sepsis-3).J Am Med Assoc. 2016; 315: 801-810Crossref PubMed Scopus (11873) Google Scholar]. It is estimated to affect more than 30 million people worldwide every year with high mortality and morbidity [[2]Fleischmann C. Scherag A. Adhikari N.K. Hartog C.S. Tsaganos T. Schlattmann P. et al.Assessment of global incidence and mortality of hospital-treated sepsis. Current estimates and limitations.Am J Respir Crit Care Med. 2016; 193: 259-272Crossref PubMed Scopus (1788) Google Scholar]. Sepsis was reported as a key global health issue at the Seventieth World Health Assembly (WHA) in 2017, where a resolution on sepsis was adopted by Member States [[3]Rhodes A. Evans L.E. Alhazzani W. Levy M.M. Antonelli M. Ferrer R. et al.Surviving sepsis campaign: international guidelines for management of sepsis and septic shock: 2016.Intens Care Med. 2017; 43: 304-377Crossref PubMed Scopus (3674) Google Scholar]. Sepsis can result from care practices and complicate healthcare-associated infections. Hand hygiene, a core of infection prevention and control (IPC), plays a critical role in preventing such avoidable events [4World Health Organization WHO guidelines on hand hygiene in health care: first global patient safety challenge: clean care is safer care Geneva. World Health Organization, Switzerland2009Google Scholar, 5World Health Organization Guidelines on core components of infection prevention and control programmes at the national and acute health care facility level. World Health Organization, Geneva, Switzerland2016Google Scholar]. Each year, the World Health Organization (WHO) SAVE LIVES: Clean Your Hands campaign aims to bring people together in support of hand hygiene improvement globally on or around 5 May [[6]World Health Organization. SAVE LIVES: clean your hands WHO's global annual campaign advocacy toolkit. Available at: http://www.who.int/gpsc/5may_advocacy-toolkit.pdf?ua=1. Accessed 31 January 2018.Google Scholar]. In 2018, the campaign focuses on supporting the prevention of sepsis in health care. WHO urges ministries of health, health facility leaders, IPC leaders, health workers and patient advocacy groups to take action on hand hygiene to prevent sepsis in health care (Table 1). WHO also invites health facilities to join the global campaign to demonstrate on-going commitment to hand hygiene and IPC (http://www.who.int/infection-prevention/campaigns/clean-hands/register/en/).Table 15 May 2018 World Health Organization SAVE LIVES: Clean Your Hands campaign calls to actionHealth workers‘Take 5 MomentsaRefers to the ‘My 5 Moments for Hand Hygiene’ as published in the WHO guidelines on hand hygiene in health care (see ref. [4]). to clean your hands to prevent sepsis in health care’IPC leaders‘Be a champion in promoting hand hygiene to prevent sepsis in health care’Health facility leaders‘Prevent sepsis in health care, make hand hygiene a quality indicator in your hospital’Ministries of health‘Implement the 2017 WHA sepsis resolution. Make hand hygiene a national marker of health-care quality’Patient advocacy groups‘Ask for 5 Moments of clean hands to prevent sepsis in health care’Abbreviations: IPC, infection prevention and control; WHA, World Health Assembly.a Refers to the ‘My 5 Moments for Hand Hygiene’ as published in the WHO guidelines on hand hygiene in health care (see ref. [4]World Health Organization WHO guidelines on hand hygiene in health care: first global patient safety challenge: clean care is safer care Geneva. World Health Organization, Switzerland2009Google Scholar). Open table in a new tab Abbreviations: IPC, infection prevention and control; WHA, World Health Assembly. Each hand hygiene action contributes to preventing sepsis in health care: let us act together, ‘It's in your hands—prevent sepsis in health care.’ The authors report that there are no conflicts of interest. World Health Organization and Infection Control Programme & WHO Collaborating Centre on Patient Safety (SPCI/WCC), University of Geneva Hospitals and Faculty of Medicine, Geneva, Switzerland; hand hygiene research activities at the SPCI/WCC are supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation (32003B_163262).