Clean hands save lives: WHO

Geneva - Alcohol-based hand cleaners for hospital staff, easier and faster to use than soap and water, could save lives and slash health care costs, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Friday.

The United Nations agency estimated that 1.4 million people worldwide are sick at any given moment with infections they catch in hospitals, mainly spread when doctors and nurses do not clean their hands every time they tend to a new patient.

"Unhygienic hands are a way of transmitting infection. It is one of the basics of hygiene that health care workers should have clean hands," Liam Donaldson, chair of the WHO World Alliance for Patient Safety and England's Chief Medical Officer, told a news briefing.

Between 5 and 10 percent of patients in developed country hospitals, and up to a quarter of those receiving care in the developing world, are afflicted with such ailments which are costly to treat and can be deadly.

Up to 10 percent of those who catch an infection in hospital die as a result, said Didier Pittet, leader of the WHO Global Patient Safety Challenge and head of infection control at the Geneva University Hospitals.

Because rubbing one's hands with an alcohol-based solution is easier to integrate into health care routines than constantly cleaning in a sink, Pittet said its use by health professionals can prevent infections that cost thousands of dollars to treat.

"It makes it a lot easier for the health care workers to clean their hands and to reduce the amount of bacteria that they have on their hands," he said.

Some 35 countries have signed on to a WHO initiative to fight infections associated with health care practices. -- Reuters Limited

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