DHS Further Analysis Reports No. 109 - This report documents trends in key child nutrition indicators in Rwanda. Data from the Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) in 2005, 2010, and 2014-15 were analyzed, disaggregated by selected equity-related variables, and tested for trends. Over the survey per...iod, Rwanda had high rates of exclusive breastfeeding, with regional variation. Rates of continued breastfeeding were also high but generally decreased as mother’s education and household wealth increased in all survey years. Complementary feeding practices varied by region, mother’s education, household wealth, urban-rural residence, and sex of the child.
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The Government of Malawi is committed to improving health and livelihoods in Malawi through community health – the
provision of basic health services in rural and urban communities with the participation of people who live there.
Historically, Community Health has significantly contributed to im...provements in Malawi’s health outcomes in particular
attainment of MDG4. However, the community health system faces resource constraints and inconsistencies around quality
of service – which negatively affect health outcomes.
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The threat posed by antimicrobial resistance (AMR) to public health as well as global health security has been reiterated in umerous World Health Assembly (WHA) resolutions. AMR is also prioritized under the Global Health Security Agenda (GHSA), and India is one of the contributing countries. The Mi...nistry of Health & Family Welfare (MoHFW) identified AMR as one of the top 10 priorities for the ministry’s collaborative work with WHO. The National Health Policy 2017 identifies antimicrobial resistance as a problem and calls for effective action to address it. An international conference on AMR – “Combating Antimicrobial Resistance: A
Public Health Challenge and Priority”, was jointly organized by the Government of India and World Health Organization (WHO) in February 2016, which was attended by more than 350 participants. The Hon’ble Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi, and the Hon’ble Union Minister for Health, Shri J.P. Nadda have reiterated government’s commitment to tackle AMR.
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22 Sept. 2021
The rapid development of effective Covid-19 vaccines in 2020 gave hope to the world in the darkest days of the deadly pandemic. However, the vaccine roll-out has been massively skewed towards wealthy nations. While rich states have hoarded vaccines, companies have also played a decisi...ve role in restricting fair access to a life-saving health product. This report focuses on six leading vaccine developers, AstraZeneca, BioNTech, Johnson & Johnson, Moderna, Novavax and Pfizer, assessing each company’s human rights policy, pricing structure, records on intellectual property, knowledge and technology sharing, allocation of available vaccine doses and transparency.
Available in Arabic, English, French, German and Spanish
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The Indonesian government has reformed its laws, policies, and institutions to better manage disaster risk since the significant 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami. The Government of Indonesia now has contingency plans for every disaster-prone city which identifies its vulnerabilities, outlines the relief re...sponse, and builds overall preparedness. In 2007, the government introduced a disaster management bill that incorporated disaster management prevention into disaster management response. In 2008, Indonesia created the National Disaster Management Agency (Badan Nasional Penanggulangan Bencana, BNPB). The new shift led to the strengthening of the country’s disaster management agency, and the addition of district branches and representatives. Despite the progress made, more work is needed at the local level as well as integration of disaster risk reduction in government departments.11 Under Indonesia’s 2007 Disaster Management law, provincial and district administrations are mandated to head disaster management during a crisis.
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The sixteenth meeting of the Strategic and Technical Advisory Group for Neglected Tropical Diseases (STAG-NTD) was held as a hybrid meeting, 27–28 September 2022.
Dr Ren Minghui, Assistant Director-General, Universal Health Coverage/Communicable and Noncommunicable Diseases, welcomed participan...ts to the meeting. He said the World Health Organization’s Department of Control of Neglected Tropical Diseases (WHO/NTD) was in a state of transition. Following the death of the late esteemed Director Dr Mwelecele Ntuli Malecela earlier in the year, Dr Gautam Biswas had taken over as Acting Director but would soon retire; the appointment of a new Director was under way. Owing to rotation of STAG-NTD members, this would be the last meeting for some and the first meeting for several new participants. The work however would continue with the same commitment. Discussions over the next two days would focus on critical issues regarding recovery of NTD services following the disruptions caused by coronavirus disease (COVID-19), which had impacted many health services worldwide. He looked forward to receiving the advice and guidance of STAG-N
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Early Childhood Matters is a journal about early childhood. It looks at specific issues regarding the development of young children, in particular from a psychosocial perspective. It is published twice per year by the Bernard van Leer Foundation.
On Page 54 of this issue the article titled: "Par...enting in times of war: supporting caregivers and children in crisis" can be found. In this article: Humanitarian interventions to support and guide parents and caregivers in times of war can mitigate the negative effects of violence and chaos on children and promote their resilience and development. This article highlights recent findings from the International Rescue Committee’s parenting programmes in Syria, underscoring the importance of such programmes not only in strengthening caregiving practices but also in addressing the psychological needs of parents.
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Every year, nearly 250 million people move across borders temporarily or permanently for a job opportunity, studying, to flee a crisis back home, or for other reasons. Another 750 million move for similar reasons within the borders of their countries. With the understanding that human mobility affec...ts public health, and health affects human mobility and migrants, for decades, IOM has been providing critical health services to women, children and men on the move, while standing by governments for technical and operational support as needed. In 2019, in lower-income settings and in complex emergencies, along the world’s most perilous migration routes, in the aftermath of natural disasters or in response to disease outbreaks, IOM’s health teams have provided hundreds of thousands with primary health-care consultations, mental health and psychosocial support, sexual and reproductive health care, pre-migration health services, and much more.
This year, more than ever before, as the world reels from the socioeconomic impact of COVID-19, we have experienced that health is a cross-cutting component of overall human development and well-being.
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This report presents three scenarios on the impact of COVID-19 in Africa using economic growth forecasts, mortality and efforts to ameliorate impact through social grants. Likely effects are examined on per capita income, poverty and the attainment of selected Sustainable Development Goals targets. ...Africa’s development trajectory has suffered a severe setback, with extreme poverty rising in all the scenarios. The pandemic threatens Africa in several ways, and the report provides policy recommendations to reduce vulnerability and strengthen resilience.
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In Kenya, the bacterial infections that contribute most to human disease are often those in which re-‐sistance is most evident. Examples are multidrug-‐resistant enteric bacterial pathogens such as typhoid, ... diarrhoeagenic Escherichia coli and invasive non-‐typhi salmonella, penicillin-‐resistant Streptococcus pneu-‐moniae, vancomycin-‐resistant enterococci, methicillin-‐resistant Staphylococcus aureus and multidrug-‐re-‐sistant Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Resistance to medicines commonly used to treat malaria is of particu-‐lar concern, as is the emerging resistance to anti-‐HIV drugs. Often, more expensive medicines are required to treat these infections, and this becomes a major challenge in resource-‐poor settings.
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Maternal and child malnutrition is a significant public health problem in South Sudan. Among children aged 6-59 months, 31% are stunted, 28% are underweight, and nearly 23% are acutely malnourished of which 13% are estimated to suffer from moderate acute malnutrition and 10% from severe acute malnut...rition.
Overall, South Sudan’s nutrition situation is worrisome, with GAM persistently above the emergency threshold in the Greater Upper Nile, Northern Bahr el Ghazal and Warrap states. Though data on micronutrient deficiencies is scanty, Vitamin A Supplementation (VAS) among children 6-59 months stood at only 2.6% in 2010, showing low uptake (SHHS, 2010). This is against a backdrop of high morbidity levels and a negligible proportion of children 6 to 23 months receiving at least the recommended minimum acceptable diet. In order to ensure optimal child growth, it is essential to ensure good nutrition and basic health care from pregnancy through two years of age (the first 1000 days).
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A training manual for identifying, assessing, preventing and controlling the risks of pandemics in the workplace. This training manual has been developed for both medical and non-medical personnel who may be called upon to lead emergency response, (eg epidemic outbreak, etc), ensure effective conta...inment whiles work continues and essential goods and services continue to be supplied.
The manual provides insight into some of the local epidemics experienced in Ghana such as Cholera, Cerebrospinal meningitis (CSM) and Influenza(s), the causes, signs and symptoms and preventive measures with a view to increasing knowledge among management, staff and their families as well as immediate communities within which they work.
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In health emergencies as in periods of stability, restoring access to primary health-care services is a priority in so far as many health problems can be dealt with by means of preventive care and
conventional therapy. Depending on the context, the ICRC must often take action in this area, taking i...nto account the level of emergency, the involvement of other actors, the possible evolution of the situation and the organization's operational strategies.
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To understand the national situation, Ethiopia did a situation assessment, launched its first strategy in 2011, and took action to contain AMR, as detailed in the blue boxes found throughout this strategy. This updated version of the strategy was in response to the revised health and medicines polic...ies, health sector transformation plan, and the resolutions of the 68th World Health Assembly
of May 2015 and so that Ethiopia’s efforts could be coordinated with global initiatives in the prevention and containment of AMR.
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The World Heart Federation (WHF) Roadmap series covers a large range of cardiovascular conditions. These Roadmaps identify potential roadblocks and their solutions to improve the prevention, detection and management of cardiovascular diseases and provide a generic global framework available for loca...l adaptation. A first Roadmap on raised blood pressure was published in 2015. Since then, advances in hypertension have included the publication of new clinical guidelines (AHA/ACC; ESC; ESH/ISH); the launch of the WHO Global HEARTS Initiative in 2016 and the associated Resolve to Save Lives (RTSL) initiative in 2017; the inclusion of single-pill combinations on the WHO Essential
Medicines’ list as well as various advances in technology, in particular telemedicine and mobile health. Given the substantial benefit accrued from effective interventions in the management of hypertension and their potential for scalability in low and middle-income countries (LMICs), the WHF has now revisited and updated the ‘Roadmap for raised BP’ as ‘Roadmap for hypertension’
by incorporating new developments in science and policy. Even though cost-effective lifestyle and medical interventions to prevent and manage hypertension exist, uptake is still low, particularly in resource-poor areas. This Roadmap examined the roadblocks pertaining to both the demand side (demographic and socio-economic factors, knowledge and beliefs, social relations, norms, and
traditions) and the supply side (health systems resources and processes) along the patient pathway to propose a range of possible solutions to overcoming them. Those include the development of population-wide prevention and control programmes; the implementation of opportunistic screening and of out-of-office blood pressure measurements; the strengthening of primary care and a greater focus on task sharing and team-based care; the delivery of people-centred care and stronger patient and carer education; and the facilitation of adherence to treatment. All of the above are dependent upon the availability and effective distribution of good quality, evidencebased, inexpensive BP-lowering agents.
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The agenda focuses on six critical changes necessary for more children suffering from SAM to access effective treatment. Building on lessons from the last decade, and the experiences of other successful health initiatives, the agenda addresses issues ranging from the creation of a more enabling envi...ronment to stronger mechanisms for tracking progress. It provides a diagnosis of the key challenges in each of these areas to-date and the specific solutions needed to turn things around over the next five years. These solutions require a collective effort at global, regional and national levels. The Agenda lays out Action Against Hunger’s commitments and contributions to these joint efforts
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This report is one of the first major products of the newly established Precision Public Health Metrics unit of the UCN cluster of the WHO Regional Office for Africa. The report presents national trends in communicable and non-communicable disease burden and control in the WHO African region. It tra...cks progress made with respect to disease burden reduction, elimination and eradication. It also highlights major emerging threats, opportunities and priorities in the fight against commu- nicable and non-communicable diseases in the region. It covers the period 2000-2022, but for some indicators, information is available only up to 2021.
The report shows the number of reported cases for malaria and vaccine preventable diseases (meningitis, measles, yellow fever, pertussis, diphtheria, tetanus, and polio); disease incidence due to HIV, tuberculosis and four major noncommunicable diseases (cardiovas- cular diseases, cancers, diabetes and chronic respira- tory diseases).
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The substantial burden of death and disability that results from interpersonal violence, road traffic injuries, unintentional injuries, occupational health risks, air pollution, climate change, and inadequate water and sanitation falls disproportionally on low- and middle-income countries. Injury Pr...evention and Environmental Health addresses the risk factors and presents updated data on the burden, as well as economic analyses of platforms and packages for delivering cost-effective and feasible interventions in these settings. The volume's contributors demonstrate that implementation of a range of prevention strategies-presented in an essential package of interventions and policies-could achieve a convergence in death and disability rates that would avert more than 7.5 million deaths a year
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The humanitarian crisis in Northeast Nigeria, driven by conflict, climate-related shocks, and food insecurity, has created immense challenges for the health sector in Borno, Adamawa, and Yobe (BAY) States. About 1.8 million people remain displaced(1), with inadequate access to healthcare services an...d persistent disease outbreaks, malnutrition, and mental health challenges. This strategy outlines a comprehensive localization approach to strengthen the health sector's capacity by empowering local and national actors (L/NAs) include state and local government structures to lead humanitarian responses at respective levels with minimal oversight functions.
The localization strategy aligns with the global commitments of the Grand Bargain 2.0, prioritizing equitable partnerships, capacity sharing, and resource mobilization to enhance sustainable, community-owned health systems(2). Key components include increasing the visibility and meaningful participation of L/NAs in health sector coordination, promoting direct funding to local actors, and addressing systemic barriers such as governance, leadership, capacity, and resource gaps.
The global humanitarian community made a commitment, as reflected in the Grand Bargain 2.0, to localization (3) to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of humanitarian aid. A key priority of this commitment is to empower local actors to take a leading role in delivering assistance, ultimately leading to better outcomes for affected communities. A localized health response, strengthened by partnerships, can achieve several key outcomes, including rapid response and access, community acceptance, cost-effectiveness, links to long-term development, and increased accountability to the community. Localization in health matters because it ensures sustainable and community-owned health responses.
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Tuberculosis continues to represent a severe public health problem in the Region of the Americas, even more so in the case of indigenous peoples, whose TB incidence is much higher than that of the general population. To achieve tuberculosis control in these communities, it is necessary to respond t...o communities’ diverse needs from an intercultural perspective that allows the application of a holistic approach—from a standpoint of equality and mutual respect—and considers the value of their cultural practices. In the Region of the Americas, although there has been progress toward recognizing the need for an intercultural approach to health services, obstacles rooted in discrimination, racism, and the exclusion of indigenous peoples and other ethnic groups persist. To respond to this situation, the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) prepared this guidance which––based on an intercultural approach in accordance with the priority lines of the current PAHO Policy on Ethnicity and Health and its practical development in the Region’s indigenous populations––represent a support tool for implementing the End TB Strategy. This publication integrates PAHO’s accumulated experience and best practices developed by its Member States in recent years, including discussions and experiences shared in regional meetings on the issue, and emphasizes innovation and social inclusion. This requires an urgent shift away from traditional paradigms, taking specific actions that gradually reduce TB incidence and moving toward effective multisectoral actions that have proven effective in quickly containing the epidemic. This publication integrates PAHO’s accumulated experience and best practices developed by its Member States in recent years, including discussions and experiences shared in regional meetings on the issue, and emphasizes innovation and social inclusion. This requires an urgent shift away from traditional paradigms, taking specific actions that gradually reduce TB incidence and moving toward effective multisectoral actions that have proven effective in quickly containing the epidemic.
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