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International Infection Prevention Week --- October 17--23, 2005
Approximately 2 million health-care--associated infections occur in hospitals in the United States each year, resulting
in 90,000 deaths (1). Health-care--associated
infections are estimated to cost more than $4.5 billion per year
(1). For 30 years, CDC and infection-control professionals have implemented prevention strategies to reduce health-care--associated
infections. International Infection Prevention Week (formerly Infection Control Week) was established in 1986 by
presidential proclamation to focus public and professional attention on health-care--associated infections and other infectious diseases.
The theme of this year's International Infection Prevention Week is "Infection Prevention: It's in Your Hands." During
the week of October 17--23, health-care facilities worldwide are encouraged to conduct special educational activities to
emphasize adherence to practices that can prevent infections (e.g., proper hand hygiene). International Infection Prevention
Week will be featured on the CDC website at
http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/hip/prevention_week.htm.
A free copy of the 2005 International Infection Prevention Week tool kit is available from the Association for
Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology, Inc. at
http://www.apic.org. In addition, the World Health Organization is
promoting the 2005--2006 Global Patient Safety Challenge entitled, "Clean Care is Safer
Care." Information about this program is available at
http://www.who.int/patientsafety/challenge/en.
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Health and Human Services.References to non-CDC sites on the Internet are
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endorsement of these organizations or their programs by CDC or the U.S.
Department of Health and Human Services. CDC is not responsible for the content
of pages found at these sites. URL addresses listed in MMWR were current as of
the date of publication.
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