Taking place on 5th May, global ‘Clean Your Hands’ Day is fast approaching, and Bristan is lending its voice to the campaign for comprehensive hand hygiene.
Founded in 2009, the annual ‘Clean Your Hands’ initiative is part of a global effort led by the World Health Organization (WHO) to bring people together in support of the improvement of hand hygiene in healthcare. This year, the key focus is the fight against antibiotic resistance, and how rigorous hand washing routines can aid this.
Chris Tranter, Product Manager at Bristan, comments: “Global anti-microbial resistance has been described as a crisis on par with global warming, and everyone associated with the healthcare industry should be giving this the consideration it deserves. Hands are the easiest way for bacteria to travel from person to person, and in a healthcare environment, this could have severe consequences, particularly for vulnerable patients such as the very young and the elderly.”
Hand hygiene plays an enormous role in reducing the spread of dangerous bacteria, with estimates suggesting that 80 per cent of infectious diseases are spread by touch. This is crucial to stopping the propagation of anti-microbial resistance, and ensuring that what is a potentially serious risk to patients is changed to an avoidable one.
Chris continues: “Despite tireless work from bodies such as WHO, there is still a startling lack of awareness and emphasis placed around handwashing. In fact, researchers believe that a million deaths a year could be prevented if everyone practiced proper hand hygiene, a figure which clearly should not be taken lightly.
“Manufacturers, healthcare professionals and specifiers need to come together to make hand hygiene a priority, and part of that is ensuring that hand washing is made as simple and effective as possible. Fundamentally, good practice constitutes arms bare to the elbows, lever taps that can be operated without using the hands (where the elbow is used instead). In addition, infrared taps, soap dispensers and urinal flushes that offer completely hands-free operation, are a hugely effectively way of reducing cross-contamination.
“With global ‘Clean Your Hands’ day just around the corner, it’s the perfect time for everyone associated with the healthcare industry – and for that matter, across any sector – to consider how they can help make proper hand hygiene a universal practice.”
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