Academic Year 2020-2021
CE 4407
WHO infection prevention and control
practice
Sahar Bassaly MD, PhD, MSc
Assistant Professor
Email: SBassaly@cmcc.ca
Heba Khella MD, PhD, MSc
Assistant Professor
Email: hkhella@cmcc.ca
Objectives
• Review the infection prevention and
control practices.
Hand wash
• DO carry out hand hygiene (use soap and water or alcohol rub),
and wash carefully, including wrists and spaces between the
fingers for at least 30 seconds (follow WHO’s ‘My 5 moments
for hand hygiene’).
• DO NOT forget to clean your hands.
Gloves
• Best practice is to wear disposable gloves, e.g. nitrile or latex,
when undertaking venepuncture.
• The wearing of gloves can help prevent acquiring a blood-borne
virus (BBV) if you sustain a needlestick injury.
• During a needlestick injury, if gloves are worn, up to 86% of the
blood on the needle is wiped off by the glove material,
therefore, reducing the risk of acquiring a BBV.
• DO use one pair of non-sterile gloves per procedure or patient
• DO NOT use the same pair of gloves for more than one
patient
• DO NOT wash gloves for reuse
Single-use device
• DO use a single-use device for blood sampling and
drawing.
• DO NOT use a syringe, needle or lancet for more
than one patient.
Decontaminating the Skin
• Best practice is to clean the skin before venipuncture
• Good skin preparation reduces the risk of infection from
colonizing skin bacteria
• DO use a 70% alcohol or 70% alcohol with 2% chlorhexidine
swab to clean the area for 30 seconds using moderate pressure
and allow to air dry
• DO NOT re-palpate or touch the area after cleaning.
• Applying a lint free sterile dressing over the puncture site is
important to prevent infection.
Disposal Procedure
• DO discard the used device (a needle and syringe is a single unit)
immediately into a robust sharps container.
• DO NOT leave an unprotected needle lying outside the sharps container.
• Where recapping of a needle is unavoidable, DO use the one-hand scoop
technique.
• DO NOT recap a needle using both hands.
• Click on this link to watch a video on recapping using the one hand technique
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=72&v=AYUbpBLceTg&feature
=emb_logo
• DO seal the sharps container with a tamper-proof lid.
• DO NOT overfill or decant a sharps container.
Before injecting into a tube
• DO place laboratory sample tubes in a sturdy rack before
injecting into the rubber stopper.
• DO NOT inject into a laboratory tube while holding it
with the other hand
Accidents Report
• DO immediately report any incident or accident linked to a needle
or sharp injury and seek assistance; start post-exposure
prophylaxis (PEP) as soon as possible, following protocols.
• DO NOT delay PEP after exposure to potentially contaminated
material; beyond 72 hours, PEP is NOT effective.
References:
• WHO guidelines on drawing blood best practices in phlebotomy (pdf also
available on KIRO) Page 12.