Prevention Is Where Patient Safety Begins
International Infection Prevention Week is more than an annual observance. It is an opportunity to recognize infection prevention and control (IPC) as one of the most practical, equitable and cost-effective foundations of safe health care. Preventing infection protects patients, health workers, families and communities; reduces avoidable illness and death; limits antimicrobial resistance (AMR); and strengthens preparedness for outbreaks and other public health emergencies.
In an interconnected world, pathogens move with people and can spread rapidly between communities, health facilities and countries. The COVID-19 pandemic, together with outbreaks of Ebola, Marburg and mpox, demonstrated how health-care settings can amplify transmission when IPC systems are weak. Yet infection prevention is equally important outside headline-making emergencies. Health care-associated infections (HAIs) remain an everyday patient-safety threat in hospitals and clinics. WHO’s 2024 global IPC report emphasizes that HAIs contribute to suffering, disability, premature death and higher health-care costs, while also driving AMR. Importantly, a large proportion can be prevented through effective IPC measures and basic water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) services [1].
From Individual Practices to a System of Safety
IPC is sometimes reduced to hand hygiene or personal protective equipment. Both are essential, but modern IPC is much broader. It is a system of interlocking safeguards: hand hygiene; appropriate use of personal protective equipment; respiratory hygiene; environmental cleaning; sterilization and disinfection; safe injection practices; management of invasive devices; transmission-based precautions; occupational health; safe waste management; and surveillance of HAIs.
The scientific direction is increasingly clear: these measures work best when embedded in strong programmes rather than implemented as isolated activities. WHO reports that IPC interventions, including hand hygiene and access to high-quality WASH services, can reduce the risk of HAIs by up to 70% [2]. Effective programmes therefore require trained IPC professionals, facility leadership, reliable supplies, microbiology and diagnostic capacity, surveillance data, monitoring and feedback, and a culture in which infection prevention is everybody’s responsibility.
This approach also connects IPC directly with antimicrobial stewardship. Every infection prevented is one less potential need for an antimicrobial. Fewer infections mean fewer opportunities for resistant organisms to emerge, spread and cause difficult-to-treat disease. IPC is therefore not only about protecting an individual patient today; it is also about preserving the effectiveness of lifesaving medicines for tomorrow.
A Global Agenda with a 2030 Horizon
The WHO Global Strategy on Infection Prevention and Control places IPC at the center of infectious-hazard and health-emergency preparedness and response, AMR containment, health-system strengthening, and safe, high-quality care [3]. The Global Action Plan and Monitoring Framework on IPC, 2024–2030, provides a pathway for translating these commitments into implementation and measurable progress.
However, the implementation gap remains substantial. WHO reported that 71% of countries had an active IPC programme in 2023–2024, but only 6% met all WHO minimum requirements [4]. This contrast is important: having a policy or programme on paper is not the same as ensuring that infection prevention works at the bedside, in an operating theatre, in a laboratory, at a primary care facility or during an emergency.
International Infection Prevention Week should therefore encourage a shift from awareness to accountability. Countries need not only IPC guidance, but sustainable financing, trained workforces, standards, surveillance, WASH infrastructure and routine measurement of implementation.
Eastern Mediterranean Region: IPC in Fragile and Diverse Settings
The need is particularly urgent in the WHO Eastern Mediterranean Region. The Region includes countries affected by conflict, displacement, humanitarian emergencies, climate-related hazards and fragile health systems. Such pressures can disrupt WASH services and supply chains, increase overcrowding, weaken laboratory and surveillance capacity, and make consistent IPC implementation difficult.
WHO reports that the Eastern Mediterranean Region has one of the highest frequencies of HAIs globally, with prevalence reported at 12–18% in several countries [5]. AMR further magnifies the challenge: WHO has reported that AMR is associated with nearly 373,000 deaths each year in the Region, while primary health care facilities where a large proportion of antibiotics are prescribed are increasingly recognized as critical settings for integrating IPC and antimicrobial stewardship [6].
This regional reality demands an inclusive approach. IPC cannot remain concentrated in tertiary hospitals. It must reach primary health care, emergency departments, laboratories, maternity and neonatal services, long-term care, community-facing services and humanitarian settings. Health workers also need protection, training and safe working conditions if they are to protect others.
Turning Prevention into Routine Practice
Pakistan reflects many of these regional challenges while managing a large, diverse health system and recurrent infectious-disease threats. Population mobility, urban crowding, climate-related emergencies and variable access to WASH can increase vulnerability to transmission. At the same time, AMR poses a growing threat to the safety and effectiveness of routine health care.
In 2025, Pakistan’s National Institute of Health and WHO announced Pakistan’s National Priority Pathogen List for AMR the first such national list in the WHO Eastern Mediterranean Region. WHO reported that antimicrobial-resistant infections are associated with more than 200,000 directly attributable and associated deaths annually in Pakistan [7]. The list includes priority bacterial and fungal pathogens and is intended to inform infection prevention, surveillance, diagnostics, research, regulation and appropriate antimicrobial use [8].
For Pakistan, this provides an opportunity to connect IPC more deliberately with AMR surveillance, laboratory strengthening, antimicrobial stewardship, outbreak preparedness and health-workforce development. The practical agenda is straightforward but demanding reliable hand-hygiene facilities, safe procedures, environmental cleaning, appropriate isolation and transmission precautions, functional sterilization, safe waste management, surveillance of HAIs, regular training and supportive supervision. These should be treated as core requirements for quality care rather than optional additions.
Pakistan: Translating IPC Commitment into National Action
Pakistan has taken an important step towards institutionalizing infection prevention and control through the National Infection Prevention and Control Strategic Plan 2025–2030 and the complementary National Healthcare-Associated Infections Surveillance and Response Strategic Plan 2025–2030, developed by the National Institute of Health under the Ministry of National Health Services, Regulations & Coordination in collaboration with provincial health departments and partners. The IPC strategy seeks to embed IPC across public and private healthcare settings from primary care to tertiary hospitals through stronger governance, sustainable financing, standardized guidelines and SOPs, a trained IPC workforce, safer infrastructure, occupational protection, and continuous monitoring. A particularly important priority is the establishment of a standardized national HAI surveillance system, supported by strengthened laboratory capacity and digital systems for timely reporting, analysis, feedback and action. The dedicated HAI strategy further aims to integrate HAI surveillance with AMR monitoring, laboratory networks and the Integrated Disease Surveillance and Response system, while strengthening training, supervision and multi-sectoral ownership. Together, these strategies represent a shift from fragmented infection-control activities towards a coordinated, evidence-informed and resilient national system one that places patient and healthcare-worker safety, prevention of avoidable infections, containment of antimicrobial resistance, and preparedness for future health emergencies at the center of Pakistan’s health-security agenda.
Five Priorities for Action
International Infection Prevention Week should leave institutions with more than posters and messages. Five priorities deserve sustained attention. First, governments and health systems should institutionalize national and facility-level IPC programmes with defined standards, budgets and accountability. Second, every health facility should ensure access to safe WASH services, essential IPC supplies and appropriately trained personnel. Third, surveillance for HAIs and AMR should generate data that are routinely fed back to clinical teams and decision makers. Fourth, IPC and antimicrobial stewardship should be integrated across hospitals and primary care rather than operating in separate silos. Fifth, health workers, patients and communities should be engaged as partners in prevention through education, vaccination, hand hygiene, respiratory etiquette and responsible antimicrobial use.
These actions also advance equity. A patient’s risk of acquiring an infection during care should not depend on the income of a country, the location of a facility or whether care is being delivered during an emergency. Safe care is a universal expectation, and IPC is one of the mechanisms through which that expectation becomes reality.
Emerging Leaders: Prevention Starts With Us
As emerging leaders in infectious diseases, we have a responsibility to ensure that infection prevention moves beyond policies and guidelines to become an everyday standard of safe care. Our generation is entering global health at a time when antimicrobial resistance, emerging pathogens, population mobility, climate-related vulnerabilities/emergencies and fragile health systems are increasingly interconnected. This demands leadership that is grounded in science but focused on implementation. We must prioritize strong infection prevention and control programmes, strengthen surveillance and laboratory systems, promote responsible antimicrobial use, advocate for safe WASH services, and support continuous capacity building and protection of healthcare workers. Equally important is our role in connecting global commitments with realities in primary health care facilities and within communities, particularly in resource-constrained and emergency settings and use evidence and turn knowledge into measurable action. During International Infection Prevention Week 2026, our message is clear: every infection prevents a patient, safeguards a health worker, preserves the effectiveness of antimicrobials and strengthens global health security.
The Infection That Never Happens
The success of infection prevention is often invisible. There is no headline for the surgical-site infection that never occurred, the health worker who was not exposed, the resistant organism that did not spread, or the outbreak that was interrupted before it became a crisis. Yet these are among the most meaningful outcomes a health system can achieve.
International Infection Prevention Week reminds us that prevention is not passive. It requires science, leadership, infrastructure, surveillance, teamwork and everyday discipline. As countries work towards stronger health systems and greater health security, the message should be simple: preventing infection is safer, more equitable and more sustainable than treating preventable harm. The strongest response to an infection is often the one that stops it from occurring in the first place.