Hand Hygiene
World Hand Hygiene Day
World Hand Hygiene Day is held annually on 5 May. The 'Save Lives: Clean Your Hands' global campaign was launched by the World Health Organization (WHO) in 2009.
New resources are now available for World Hand Hygiene Day 2025.
Overview
World Hand Hygiene Day is an international event aimed at promoting the visibility and sustainability of hand hygiene in health care, and to bring people together in support of hand hygiene improvement around the world. The Commission has produced new resources to promote World Hand Hygiene Day 2025 across the health and aged care workforce.
On World Hand Hygiene Day the WHO encourages health and aged care workers to build and share their knowledge about hand hygiene and infection prevention and control.
Sharing knowledge about hand hygiene is important because it helps stop the spread of harmful germs in health care.
World Hand Hygiene Day 2025
The Commission's focus for World Hand Hygiene Day 2025 is 'Gloves at the right time. Hand hygiene all the time: A sustainable path to better hand hygiene’.
This theme aims to support healthcare workers to contribute to safer hand hygiene and sustainability efforts by:
- Assessing whether gloves are needed
- Choosing the right gloves
- Using gloves correctly
- Performing hand hygiene.
Hand hygiene at the right times and in the right way is still one of the most important measures to protect both patients and healthcare workers, regardless of whether gloves are worn.
World Hand Hygiene Day 2025 resources
The Commission has developed campaign resources for use by healthcare services and organisations that are promoting World Hand Hygiene Day on 5 May 2025. See our Communications kit with downloadable resources and show your support for World Hand Hygiene Day 2025 by downloading and sharing the content on your website, social networks or within your health service.
5 easy steps for appropriate glove use
Gloves should be worn as part of standard precautions when there is a risk of contact with blood, body fluids or surfaces and equipment contaminated by infectious agents. The inappropriate use or overuse of gloves leads to missed opportunities for hand hygiene, increases the risk of infection transmission and occupational dermatitis, and creates additional waste.
Healthcare workers can check out the new 5 easy steps for glove use poster and the Sustainable glove use for healthcare workers - fact sheet to enhance hand hygiene practices and reduce unnecessary waste.
Hand hygiene education
A hand hygiene presentation has been developed to support healthcare workers learn about the importance of hand hygiene on World Hand Hygiene Day.
This quiz is a tool to help reinforce hand hygiene practices among colleagues in your healthcare setting.
Leading the way in sustainable care
The ‘Gloves Off!’ campaign at John Hunter Hospital offers a great example of how hand hygiene practices can be improved and unnecessary non-sterile glove use reduced in a healthcare setting. Prior to the 2023 campaign, hand hygiene compliance at John Hunter Hospital was 59%, with 60% of glove use deemed unnecessary and 70% of missed hand hygiene moments linked to improper glove use.
As healthcare workers we can all contribute to both safer hand hygiene and sustainability efforts by assessing whether gloves are needed, choosing the right gloves, using and disposing of gloves correctly and performing hand hygiene.
National Hand Hygiene Initiative
The Commission coordinates the National Hand Hygiene Initiative as part of a suite of initiatives to prevent and control infections in health care. Learn more about the NHHI.