Hand hygiene campaign looks to fight healthcare-led infection

The World Health Organization (WHO) has launched a new campaign aimed at combating healthcare-associated infection by promoting increased levels of hand hygiene in medical care.

The initiative, labeled 'Clean Care Is Safer Care', (curly) aims to reduce healthcare-associated infection in both industrialised and developing nations, though the WHO revealed that the risk of infection is between two and 20 times higher for patients in the developing world.

Currently 43 nations have signed up to the pledge to reduce healthcare-related infection and the WHO hopes another 20 will do so by the end of 2007.

Dr Didier Pittet, University of Geneva, said: "The First Global Patient Safety Challenge represents an unprecedented initiative to improve infection control practices and procedures in any healthcare setting, regardless of the level of economic development.

"Never before in the history of infection control has there been such an opportunity to improve the health of so many millions of individuals by promoting basic but essential practices," he added.

Recent figures published in the Journal of American Medicine revealed that there were more deaths in the US in 2005 from hospital-based 'superbug' MRSA than there were from AIDS.

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