World Hand Hygiene Day 2025: Date, history, theme, significance — all you need to know

READ: Can washing hands too frequently be unhealthy

It also highlights how glove use affects the environment and the climate, with a focus on waste management and generation issues that result from unnecessary glove use.

Today is #WorldHandHygieneDay!#HandHygiene & glove use 🧤 help protect you & health workers.

Remember, it’s important to clean hands:
✅ Before a procedure that involves risk of exposure to body fluids and requires use of medical gloves
✅ After removing medical gloves

Learn… pic.twitter.com/XLDNRWd88K

— World Health Organization (WHO) (@WHO) May 4, 2025

Since its inception in 2009, World Hand Hygiene Day has evolved from the WHO’s First Global Patient Safety Challenge, known as Clean Care is Safer Care, and is now part of the WHO IPC Hub & Task Force.

World Hand Hygiene Day is celebrated on May 5 every year; in 2025, it’s being observed on a Monday under the theme “WHO SAVE LIVES: Clean Your Hands.”

The global observance aims to raise awareness about the essential role of hand hygiene, specifically in preventing serious and possibly fatal healthcare-associated infections (HAIs).

SAVE LIVES: Clean Your Hands’ core message is that healthcare workers should wash their hands properly and at the right times; proper hand hygiene can potentially save millions of lives each year when practised at critical times.

According to research from the OECD, every dollar spent on hand hygiene improvements in healthcare settings can result in about $24.6 in economic benefits, including lower healthcare costs and increased productivity in the broader economy.

From The Archives: The do’s and don’ts of handwashing