World Hand Hygiene Day: Apollo Hospitals eye World Record with largest Hand Sanitizing Relay

1500 participants better previous record

600 more than the previous best

In a bid to create awareness on the importance of hand hygiene for enhancing patient and health care personnel’s safety, Indraprastha Apollo Hospitals today on this Hand Hygiene Day launched the campaign ‘Clean Hands, Healing Hands’. This endeavour involved 1500 members of the Apollo Family at New Delhi and aims at creating a Guinness World Record in hand sanitization relay.

Ms Sangita Reddy, Joint Managing Director of Apollo Hospitals said: “The aim of this campaign is to incorporate the habit of Hand Hygiene amongst all. The need for infection control and prevention is paramount for a healthy and clean environment. This will serve as a useful reminder and inspiration for patients, doctors, staff members and the community altogether spreading the message of ‘Clean hands, healing hands’.

Mr Jaideep Gupta, Managing Director of Indraprastha Apollo Hospitals, Delhi said: “We, at Indraprastha Apollo Hospitals, have always strived to give our patients, their attendants, our employees, staff members, visitors and the community we serve, a safer environment - to get healed quickly, to work healthy and to live healthy. Every year 5th May is celebrated as World Hand Hygiene Day to create awareness about the importance of hand hygiene in prevention of spread of communicable diseases. This also lessens the burden of antimicrobial resistance.”

Addressing the important issue of hand hygiene, Dr Anupam Sibal, Group Medical Director of Apollo Hospitals, commented: “Hand hygiene has been shown to be the most economical and effective intervention in preventing infections. This campaign which has seen enthusiastic participation by Apollo family members will reinforce the importance we attach to infection prevention in hospital system. We wanted to create a campaign that generates enthusiasm in the team and hence the idea to aim to create a world record.”

Explaining the process Dr Raman Sardana, Senior Consultant and HoD Microbiology said: “We formed a human chain relay, each following similar steps in sanitizing their hands with alcohol gel sanitizer and following the rules and regulations as per Guinness World Record guidelines, strictly and independently observed by witnesses and stewarded by more than 30 independent stewards not associated with the hospital.”

Indraprastha Apollo Hospitals and each individual participant eagerly awaits the verdict from the Guinness World Record, to be the world record holder in a single venue Hand Sanitizing Relay.