Human Hand hygiene

In the everyday business of medicine,no instrument is more in focus than the human hand.

According to the state of current knowledge,hands represent the greatest risk for the transmission of disease pathogens! The WHO (World Health Organization), VAH (Association for Applied Hygiene, registered association) and RKI (Robert Koch Institute) also consider the hands to be the Number one source for the spread of hospital infections, in addition to others.

Professional hand hygiene is therefore one of the most important preventive measures for the
protection of personnel and patients. Correctly performed hand hygiene reduces contamination with pathogens up to 99.9 %. Statistics for hospital infections:

• Each year, at least 2.000.000 patients in the USA and over 320.000 patients in the UK acquire one or more health care-associated infections during their stay in hospital

• 3 million hospital infections in the EU, of which 50.000 result in death

• In 80 % of all cases, hospital infections are transmitted via the hands

As a consequence, this leads to prolonged patient suffering and longer confinement to bed rest.

Furthermore, an elevated cost factor arises. In Great Britain, additional hospitalization costs in the
amount of 930 million British pounds (this is equivalent to approx. 1,2 billion euros) are calculated to
be the result of hospital infections * .