Gloves Aren’t Enough: WHO’s 2025 Hand Hygiene Call
It might be gloves. It's always hand hygiene.
That’s the bold message of WHO’s World Hand Hygiene Day 2025, urging healthcare workers and systems to stop confusing glove use with proper hand hygiene. Gloves are not a substitute—they're a tool. Hand hygiene is the constant.
Why it matters
Hand hygiene is the cornerstone of infection prevention. But in practice, glove misuse often leads to skipped hand hygiene moments, increasing risk instead of reducing it.
This year’s campaign highlights three critical goals:
Reinforce when and how to perform hand hygiene—including the correct glove use within the WHO’s 5 Moments.
Integrate hand hygiene into national IPC strategies and SOPs, aligning with WHO’s Global Action Plan and Monitoring Framework 2024–2030.
Recognize the environmental impact of unnecessary glove use, especially single-use plastic waste.
Key insights
📌 Glove use ≠ Hand hygiene: Many healthcare workers wear gloves during patient care but skip the crucial step of hand hygiene before and after glove use. WHO’s 5 Moments remain the gold standard—and they include hygiene regardless of gloves.
📌 Hand hygiene must be systemic: WHO calls for national and facility-level policies that embed hand hygiene into everyday clinical workflows, supported by leadership, training, and monitoring.
📌 Environmental cost is real: Overuse of gloves contributes to significant medical waste. Promoting correct glove use can reduce unnecessary waste while protecting patients.
A smarter path forward
To meet the 2025 objectives, healthcare systems need:
Practical, behavior-focused training on glove use and hand hygiene integration
Facility-level SOPs that clearly outline hand hygiene expectations before and after glove use
Sustainable waste strategies tied to infection prevention practices
Training must go beyond theory. Tools like Blue Mirror AI provide healthcare workers with interactive simulations and real-time feedback to master PPE technique and hand hygiene aligned with WHO standards.
Time for action
Let’s align with the 2025 campaign to:
✔ Promote hand hygiene every time, gloves or not
✔ Build sustainable IPC strategies at every level
✔ Reduce unnecessary glove waste in our care environments
✔ Deliver hand hygiene practical training to all
Hand hygiene is always the foundation. Gloves don’t change that.
Practice WHO-recommended hand hygiene with AI training
References
World Health Organization. (2025). World Hand Hygiene Day 2025 – “It might be gloves. It's always hand hygiene”. https://www.who.int/campaigns/world-hand-hygiene-day/2025
World Health Organization. (2024). Global Action Plan and Monitoring Framework 2024–2030: Infection prevention and control. Geneva: WHO.
Pittet, D., Allegranzi, B., & Storr, J. (2008). The WHO Clean Care is Safer Care programme. Journal of Infection Prevention, 9(6_suppl), 4–10.
Mitchell, R. et al. (2013). Factors associated with failure to comply with PPE protocols. Am J Infect Control, 41(8), 674–676.
