This year's theme for World Hand Hygiene Day, 5 May 2022, is focused on recognizing that we can add to a facility's climate or culture of safety and quality through cleaning our hands but also that a strong quality and safety culture will encourage people to clean hands at the right times and with the right products.

This year, WHO’s SAVE LIVES: Clean Your Hands campaign focuses on achieving appropriate hand hygiene action at the point of care. This has been at the core of WHO patient safety strategies during health care delivery for many years but is now more critical than ever. The year 2021 has been designated the International Year of Health and Care Workers: focusing on their protection is paramount. The WHO concept of “point of care” brings three elements together: the patient, the health care worker, and care or treatment involving contact with the patient or their surroundings.

Thank you for visiting our new website. On behalf of your IJIC editorial team, I would like to remind you that our restructured team is working diligently to ensure that all previously accepted manuscripts are published as soon as possible. IJIC editors and reviewers are also your infection prevention and control colleagues, and volunteer for IJIC. Our current increased turnaround times also reflect the realities that we are all dealing with in our own institutions related to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.  

If you are a returning reader or user of IJIC and are reading this message, you will also have noticed our updated webpage and format. IJIC is in the process of restructuring the journal, and is pleased to announce our partnership with our new publishing partner, Open Academia. We are also managing some staffing changes.

As a result of these changes, and in light of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, we thank you for your patience with any correspondence you may send us. 

We are very excited to share a few new features and enhancements with you: 

The new site has many new features to enhance the readers experience as well as highlighting the important work of our authors. Opportunities for further dissemination now exist using social media tools and real-time analytics.