Part 4 of the Scaling Up WASH Services in a Pandemic Seminar Series

WASH is a critical part of infection prevention and control. Despite this, one in four health care facilities lacks basic water services and 896 million people seek care at facilities with no water service, according to the WASH in Health Care Facilities 2019 report by the WHO and UNICEF. Without these fundamentals in health care settings at all points of care, quality of care will not be achieved. WaterAid has continuously been programming and advocating for increased action and integration of WASH in health care facilities.

In the last seminar of the series, which gathered about 40 participants, Alison Macintyre and Vanita Suneja of WaterAid presented on: (i) a health systems-strengthening approach to improve WASH in health care facilities; (ii) hand and environmental hygiene behavior change in health care facilities; and (iii) how WASH links to health security and antimicrobial resistance. They also highlighted the progression of WASH interventions at the global level, particularly noting the milestone of the 2019 approval of the WASH in health care facilities resolution at the World Health Assembly. Among others, it calls on countries to establish a national roadmap and targets to implement WASH in health care facilities and infection prevention and control standards.