This review gives an overview of hand hygiene in healthcare and in the community, including some aspects which have attracted little attention, such as hand drying and cultural issues determining hand hygiene behaviour. Hand hygiene is the most effective measure for interrupting the transmission of microorganisms which cause infection both in the community and in the healthcare setting. Using hand hygiene as a sole measure to reduce infection is unlikely to be successful when other factors in infection control, such as environmental hygiene, crowding, staffing levels and education are inadequate. Hand hygiene must be part of an integrated approach to infection control. Compliance with hand hygiene recommendations is poor worldwide. While the techniques involved in hand hygiene are simple, the complex interdependence of factors which determine hand hygiene behaviour makes the study of hand hygiene complex. It is now recognised that improving compliance with hand hygiene recommendations depends on altering human behaviour. Input from behavioural and social sciences is essential when designing studies to investigate compliance. Interventions to increase compliance with hand hygiene practices must be appropriate for different cultural and social needs. New strategies to promote hand hygiene worldwide include the formation of public-private partnerships.

Candidemia continues to be associated with a high mortality. Preventative measures should be targeted against high-risk hospitalized patients, especially those in ICUs, the elderly, and those undergoing major surgery. Local surveillance of candidemia is important to optimize management.

Shared care of military and civilian patients has resulted in transmission of multidrug-resistant Acinetobacter baumannii (MDR-Aci) from military casualties to civilians. Current typing technologies have been useful in revealing relationships between isolates of A. baumannii but they are unable to resolve differences between closely related isolates from small-scale outbreaks, where chains of transmission are often unclear. In a recent hospital outbreak in Birmingham, six patients were colonised with MDR-Aci isolates indistinguishable using standard techniques. We used whole-genome sequencing to identify single nucleotide polymorphisms in these isolates, allowing us to discriminate between alternative epidemiological hypotheses in this setting.

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