International Infection Prevention Week (IIPW) was established in 1986 to highlight the importance of infection prevention and control, targeting to educate stakeholders and the general public on the relevance of preventing the spread of illnesses and infectious agents including topics such as hand hygiene, infection safety, surgical site infections, impact on antibiotics rational use, that are considered among 2023's theme “Celebrating the Fundamentals of Infection Prevention”.

Infections can compromise healthcare workers’ efforts and harm public health; poor hospital and hygienic practices rank high among the leading causes of infections, especially in areas where sanitary procedures are loose and facilities are poorly administered. Health-care-associated infections occur in hospitals and long-term care facilities, leading to increased morbidity, mortality, bed occupancy, and duration of hospital stay according to some studies, with some evidence that hand hygiene, environmental cleaning, surveillance, and multimodal interventions were cost-effective.

ISID’s Guide to Infection Control in the Healthcare Setting includes several chapters that highlight efforts on prevention, including:

Hand Hygiene Monitoring
Authors: Rekha Murthy, MD, Jonathan Grein, MD
Chapter Editor: Ziad A. Memish, MD, FRCPC, FACP

Healthcare Personnel Attire in Non-Operating Room Settings
Authors: Tara Palmer, MD, FACP; Gonzalo Bearman, MD, MPH, FACP
Chapter Editor: Michelle Doll, MD

Horizontal vs Vertical Infection Control Strategies
Authors: Salma Abbas, MBBS, Michael Stevens, MD, MPH
Chapter Editor: Shaheen Mehtar, MBBS. FRC Path, FCPath, MDP

New Technologies in Infection Prevention
Author: Michelle Doll, MD, MPH
Chapter Editor: Gonzalo Bearman, MD, MPH, FACP, FSHEA, FIDSA

Positive Deviance in Infection Prevention
Authors: Alexandre Marra, MD
Chapter Editor: Michael MD, MPH, FACP, FIDSA, FSHEA

Antimicrobial Stewardship in the Hospital Setting
Authors: Jacob Pierce, MD, Dan Markley, DO, MPH, Natalie Schellack, PhD, and Michael P. Stevens, MD, MPH
Chapter Editor: Gonzalo Bearman, MD, MPH

Impact of SARS-CoV-2 on HAIs and Recommendations to Prevent HAIs
Authors: Victor D. Rosenthal, MD; Devki Kothari, MD; Gonzalo Bearman, MD, MPH
Chapter Editor: Ziad Memish, MD, FRCPC, FACP