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

Corresponding Author Professor Didier Pittet, Infection Control Programme and WHO Collaborating Centre on Patient Safety, University of Geneva Hospitals and Faculty of Medicine, 4 Rue Gabrielle-Perret-Gentil, 1211 Geneva 14, Switzerland. Tel: +41 22 372 9828 /+41 22 372 9833 (direct); E-mail: Didier.pittet@hcuge.ch 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”.