RIYADH: Saudi Arabia has recorded an increase in COVID-19 cases with 569 new infections reported on Tuesday, the highest daily tally since Feb. 28 this year.

The latest increase brought the total number of confirmed cases to 756,549 over the course of the pandemic, the Ministry of Health said.

Daily recoveries totaled 105 on Tuesday, raising the total number of recoveries to 742,782 (97 percent of all COVID-19 cases).

No COVID-19-related deaths were reported, with the Kingdom’s death toll remaining unchanged at 9,104.

The Kingdom conducted about 20,430 new tests, with the total number of administered COVID-19 vaccine doses rising to 64.6 million.

WHO hails Saudi Clean Hand initiative. (Ministry of Health)

Meanwhile, the World Health Organization has praised the Kingdom’s hand hygiene program as one of the most successful of its kind in the world, the health ministry said in a statement to Arab News.

The comments came in a report published by the WHO on International World Hand Hygiene Day, held on May 5 every year. This year’s theme is “Celebrating hand hygiene success around the world.”

In 2009, following the launch of the WHO “Save Lives: Clean Your Hands” campaign, the Kingdom launched a national hand hygiene program. Since then, the country has made significant improvements in hand hygiene, as well as infection prevention and control.

“In 2019, the Council of Ministers recognized hand hygiene as the most important intervention to reduce healthcare-associated infections with the highest possible level of national legislation,” the health ministry said.

“This meant mandating the practice of hand hygiene for health practitioners, requiring all healthcare facilities to use WHO’s tools to evaluate compliance, and directing all health sectors to launch and intensify hand hygiene educational programs in healthcare facilities.”

An extensive network of hand hygiene coordinators has been trained, the ministry said, adding that each healthcare facility in the Kingdom must have at least one hand hygiene coordinator, whether it is a hospital, primary healthcare center, dental center or dialysis center.

The number of accredited coordinators in the first quarter of this year reached 2,100.