In the opening speech of the event, Assoc. Prof. Dr. Suna Seçil Öztürk Deniz from the Department of Infectious Diseases at PAU Hospitals stated:

“Since 2009, the World Health Organization has been conducting the ‘Save Lives: Clean Your Hands’ campaign. In its 18th year, it calls on the world to take more decisive steps in hand hygiene, infection prevention, and control. The slogan chosen for 2026, ‘Action saves lives,’ emphasizes the fundamental role of hand hygiene in improving healthcare quality and reducing preventable deaths. Healthcare-associated infections continue to pose a serious threat to patients worldwide every day. These infections not only negatively affect individual patient health but also increase the burden of antimicrobial resistance and significantly raise healthcare system costs. Strengthening hand hygiene and infection prevention and control practices is a high-impact approach for both improving health outcomes and reducing economic burden.”

Assoc. Prof. Dr. Öztürk Deniz: “Action saves lives”

Emphasizing the 2026 targets under the World Health Organization Global Action Plan and Monitoring Framework, Assoc. Prof. Dr. Suna Seçil Öztürk Deniz continued:

“It is essential to integrate hand hygiene into all action plans and standard operating procedures. Strengthening the role of experts and leading healthcare professionals in infection control, as well as adopting monitoring and feedback systems for hand hygiene compliance as a key national indicator in all reference hospitals, are among the main objectives. Ensuring sustainable hand hygiene even under challenging conditions is of great importance. Despite security challenges and deficiencies in infrastructure, water, sanitation, and hygiene facilities, all necessary conditions must be established to ensure proper hand hygiene. Continuous access to water, soap, clean towels, and alcohol-based hand antiseptics is a fundamental component of this process. As a physician, I emphasize that hand hygiene must be implemented as an indispensable standard in all healthcare processes to ensure patient safety, improve healthcare quality, and prevent infections. In this context, all healthcare workers, institutions, and stakeholders must adopt a more effective and sustainable approach to hand hygiene.”

The event concluded with the presentation of certificates of appreciation and a group photo session.