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An Intra-COVID-19 Assessment of Hand Hygiene Facility, Policy and Staff Compliance in Two Hospitals in Sierra Leone: Is There a Difference between Regional and Capital City Hospitals?
- Source :
- Tropical Medicine and Infectious Disease; Volume 6; Issue 4; Pages: 204, Tropical Medicine and Infectious Disease, Vol 6, Iss 204, p 204 (2021), Tropical Medicine and Infectious Disease
- Publication Year :
- 2021
- Publisher :
- MDPI AG, 2021.
-
Abstract
- Although hand hygiene (HH) is the most effective intervention to reduce the spread of infections, there are limited data on HH facilities, policy, and compliance in sub-Saharan Africa. This cross-sectional study is aimed at assessing HH using the WHO HH self-assessment framework, HH technical reference manual, and a modified infection control self-assessment tool in two hospitals in Sierra Leone. Only 10% and 9% of regional and capital city hospitals had running tap water, respectively. Veronica buckets were the resources for HH in 89% of units in the regional hospital and 92% of units in capital city hospital. Constant supply of soap and alcohol-based hand rub was available in 82% and 68%; and 74% and 79% of units in the capital city and regional hospitals, respectively. Only 10% of the units in both hospitals had hand-drying facilities and functional sinks. Overall HH compliance for the two hospitals was 18.6% and was higher in the regional (20.8%) than the capital city (17.0%) hospitals. The HH levels for the capital city and regional hospitals were 277.5 and 262.5 respectively. Despite the COVID-19 pandemic, there are still challenges with HH compliance in Sierra Leone. It is, therefore, necessary to strengthen the HH multi-modal strategy.
- Subjects :
- Hand rub
Hand washing
General Immunology and Microbiology
Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19)
media_common.quotation_subject
Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health
compliance
Article
Sierra Leone
Sierra leone
Regional hospital
Infectious Diseases
Hygiene
hand hygiene
alcohol-based hand rub
Capital city
Medicine
Infection control
Business
Socioeconomics
hand washing
media_common
Subjects
Details
- ISSN :
- 24146366
- Volume :
- 6
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- Tropical Medicine and Infectious Disease
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi.dedup.....662f3fd17b86f5e2b998c3b0e7b72173