World Hand Hygiene Day – May 5, 2024

History of World Hand Hygiene Day

Lethal diseases have always plagued our world. Some scientists believe that one of the major mass extinction events could have been caused by microbes. We countermeasure one and suddenly another shows up. This has been going on since the beginning of our society. Bacteria and viruses have danced over our corpses for a long time until we discovered handwashing.

Many religious and cultural activities included handwashing. But we never made the connection between handwashing and disease spreading until 1846. Ignaz Semmelweis was a Hungarian doctor who noted the link between hand hygiene and disease spreading. He noted that the women giving birth in his hospital’s maternity ward were more likely to die of fever compared to the adjacent ward. The adjacent maternity ward was run by midwives. Semmelweis found that the doctors visiting the maternity ward were often performing autopsies and probably carried cadaverous particles on their hands. Midwives did not conduct autopsies and had cleaner hands. When Semmelweis implemented handwashing with chlorine, the death toll drastically decreased. However, sadly, this method did not become popular in the medical community.

In 1980, the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (C.D.C.) realized the importance of handwashing when a string of foodborne outbreaks occurred. They started the handwashing practice. This time, everyone followed suit. In recent years, the use of soap for handwashing has gained absolute popularity. Soaps made the practice efficient and cost-effective.