RESUMO
The germs on the hands of medical personnel in medical institutions have become the chief pathogens for hospital infection. These pathogens can be acquired not only from infected wounds or drainage wounds but also from normal and whole skin regions. Hand washing and disinfection is one of the most important measures for preventing hospital infection. The paper describes the definitions of hand washing, hygienic hand disinfection and surgical hand disinfection and discusses the action mechanisms, effects and features of various hand hygiene products currently in use, such as alcohol, hibitane glucose saline and hexachlorophenol. It enumerates a number of problems inhand hygiene, including low rate of hand hygiene observance on the part of medical personel, insufficient attention to hand hygiene on the part of medical institutions, reduction of germs' sensitivity to disinfectants, and the occurrence of contact dermatitis in disinfectant usage. The paper also gives an account of some of the latest strategies and countermeasures aiming at improving the status of hand hygiene, These include ways of lowering the incidence of contact dermatitis, reducing the bad effects of germicides, and raising the rate of hand hygiene observance.