This standard describes requirements of products, procedures and fields of application for hand hygiene in the health care sector with a view to preventing infections. To the extent that patients and relatives are involved in the care, they will be subject to the same hand hygiene requirements as those of the staff. Hand hygiene includes: -?hand disinfection -?hand wash -?surgical hand wash with disinfection -?surgical hand disinfection -?medical disposable gloves. For practical reasons, these five areas of standardisation have been gathered in one standard. In addition, the standard also describes prevention of damage to the skin which may occur in connection with hand hygiene. The form in Annex A gives examples of recommended hand hygiene in relation to care and treatment procedures.