COVID-19: a time to focus on nurses, hand hygiene and infection prevention and control

Abstract

With the global concern of the 2019 novel coronavirus (COVID-19), infection prevention and control (IPC) is increasingly perceived as a major contributor to achieve a highly effective response to the outbreak and to prevent or limit transmission in healthcare settings. Improving health results is highly reliant on well-trained nurses especially during unexpected infectious disease outbreaks. The World Health Organization (WHO) promotes hand hygiene, which is the cornerstone of infection prevention, through its annual global campaign on 5 May every year. The 2020 campaign targets nurses and midwives with the overall theme “Nurses and Midwives: CLEAN CARE is in YOUR HANDS”.