Proper handwashing can prevent infections

GENEVA (EFE) — Every May 5, the World Health Organization (WHO) commemorates World Hand Hygiene Day, this year accompanied by a warning about the excessive use of medical gloves, which can entail risks and should not be used as a substitute for proper handwashing.

These gloves "can reduce the risk of infection but are never a substitute for hand hygiene," warned WHO Assistant Director-General for Universal Health Coverage Bruce Aylward in a statement.

The organization states that gloves can be a source of infection if a healthcare professional does not change them when treating different patients, or even if they perform different procedures on a single patient.

The WHO also points out that the overuse of these protective materials made of latex, vinyl, and similar materials contributes to environmental degradation: a single average hospital generates more than 1,600 tons of waste per year, a significant portion of which is gloves.

Furthermore, treating contaminated gloves is often complicated, as they sometimes require high-temperature incineration or other specialized procedures, which entail additional costs for healthcare networks that often lack sufficient resources.

Faced with these drawbacks, the WHO once again defends the benefits of proper handwashing by healthcare workers, asserting that for every dollar invested in measures to improve this aspect of hygiene in the healthcare sector, $24.60 can be generated.

These types of investments are still urgently needed in a world where two out of five healthcare facilities still lack basic hand hygiene services, something that, according to the WHO, puts the health of 3.4 billion people at risk.

“Handwashing is one of the most effective, affordable, and universal methods for preventing the transmission of infections and providing quality, clean, and safe healthcare,” the United Nations health agency summarizes.

The WHO chose to celebrate this day on the fifth day of the fifth month of the year, as a symbol of the five fingers on each hand.

Important figure

The first doctor to discover that handwashing could reduce patient infections was the Hungarian Ignaz Semmelweis, who in the mid-19th century managed with this simple gesture to reduce the percentage of women who died after childbirth in the center where he worked from rates of up to 35% to less than 1%.

His discovery was, however, rejected by the medical community at the time, and even many of the professionals were upset that Semmelweis “blamed” them for infecting their patients.

It took almost two decades for his ideas to be accepted until Louis Pasteur demonstrated the existence of germs that cause infections, but by then Semmelweis had already died, precisely from an infection, while confined in a psychiatric center.