On May 12th, International Nurses Day, we honor the significant contributions nurses make to society. This year, acknowledging the invaluable role these individuals have made in fighting the COVID-19 pandemic feels particularly important. While nurses continue serving on the front lines, there is no better time for healthcare facilities to reinforce the importance of hand hygiene and sanitization to ensure that nurses can continue to perform their jobs as safely and effectively as possible and provide much-needed care to patients in need.

Hand hygiene

As new and former healthcare workers are entering the workforce to meet increased demand, it's more important than ever to reinforce proper hand hygiene to control the spread of infectious diseases like COVID-19.

According to the World Health Organization’s “My 5 Moments for Hand Hygiene” approach, it is important to use hand sanitizers or wash hands with soap and water to maintain proper hand hygiene. During the COVID-19 pandemic, it is especially important to perform hand hygiene, including:

Although many Earth Day activities—whether in your personal life, in your community or within your company—may look and feel differently this year, the COVID-19 crisis has shown us just how precious ‘outside’ really is. And one of the unexpected outcomes of “stay-at-home” orders is a reduction in smog and air pollution, a reduction in river pollution and even endangered sea turtles again laying egg on empty beaches.   
 

Essity has donated $200,000 to the United Nations Foundation to support the World Health Organization’s lifesaving work to help all countries to prevent, detect, and respond to COVID-19 pandemic, as well as supporting finding a vaccine.