Infection prevention and control
Located within the Integrated Health Services (IHS) department, the IPC Unit provides technical leadership and coordination of the infection prevention and control work at WHO headquarters.

 

Basic IPC and primary care

Effective IPC measures and water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) services in health care facilities are the foundation of quality care. This is particularly important in primary care which is often the first point of entry of a patient into the health system. WHO is accelerating its efforts to support countries to prevent health care-associated infections and antimicrobial resistance (AMR), including outbreaks, in primary care. A range of guidance and implementation resources is available for improving basic IPC practices and new ones are specific for primary care. Further resources are available in the hand hygiene and injection safety web pages.

Guidelines and evidence

This document aims to support those working in primary care to strengthen IPC, informed by existing WHO IPC guidance and implementation resources. Many...

Resource considerations for investing in hand hygiene improvement in health care facilities

Investment in all the drivers and facilitators of hand hygiene action in health care to ensure that it occurs at the point of care and other critical...

Operational Framework for Primary Health Care

World Health Organization & United Nations Children's Fund (‎‎UNICEF)‎‎. (‎2020)‎. Operational framework...

Hand hygiene in outpatient and home-based care and long-term care facilities: a guide to the application of the WHO multimodal hand hygiene improvement strategy and the “My Five Moments For Hand Hygiene” approach

The scope of this document is to address practical aspects related to the performance of routine hand hygiene while providing outpatient care. This document...

Implementation resources


Decontamination and reprocessing of medical devices for health care facilities: aide-memoire

Decontamination of medical devices plays an important role in the prevention of health care-associated infections. It includes cleaning, disinfection and/or...

Transmission-based precautions for the prevention and control of infections: aide-memoire

Transmission-based precautions (TBP) are used in addition to standard precautions for patients with known or suspected infection or colonization with transmissible...

Standard precautions for the prevention and control of infections: aide-memoire

Standard precautions aim to protect both health workers and patients by reducing the risk of transmission of microorganisms from both recognized and unrecognized...

WHO training package on environmental cleaning: evaluation methodology guide

This guide provides a framework for evaluating the WHO training package, Environmental cleaning and infection prevention and control in health-care facilities...

WASH FIT: A practical guide for improving quality of care through water, sanitation and hygiene in health care facilities. Second edition

WASH FIT is a risk-based, quality improvement tool for health care facilities, covering key aspects of WASH services: water; sanitation; hand hygiene;...

Infection prevention and control in primary care: a toolkit of resources

The recently published World Health Organization (WHO) Strengthening infection prevention and control in primary care document collates existing standards,...

A guide to the implementation of the WHO multimodal hand hygiene improvement strategy

 WHO_IER_PSP_2009.02_chi.pdf (‎5.297Mb)‎ WHO_IER_PSP_2009.02_per.pdf (‎1.857Mb)‎ 

Training tools

Check out the IPC training page for a variety of basic IPC courses designed for all health workers, as well as more advanced courses specific to IPC focal points, no matter the level of care provided. 

Monitoring tools

Assessment tool on infection prevention and control minimum requirements for primary health care facilities

The WHO assessment tool on infection prevention and control (IPC) minimum requirements for primary health care facilities is a tool to support the implementation...

Related links