This helpdesk report seeks to establish what lessons have been learnt from the current and previous Ebola outbreaks. It recommends good practice and makes suggestions based on the evidence for good practice and preparedness to reduce transmission and prevent further risk and exposure in affected cou...ntries.
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WHO Guideline. Since 2010, countries in the meningitis belt have started to introduce a new serogroup A meningococcal conjugate vaccine conferring individual protection and herd immunity. Following the successful roll-out of this vaccine, epidemics due to Neisseria meningitidis serogroup A (NmA) are... disappearing, but other serogroups (e.g. NmW, NmX and NmC) still cause epidemics, albeit at a lower frequency and of a smaller size. Due to these changes, WHO organized the review of the evidence to provide recommendations for epidemic control, related to operational thresholds for investigation and response to outbreaks, the use of rapid diagnostic tests, antibiotic regimens in epidemics, and prophylaxis for household contacts of cases
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The Japan Committee for UNICEF (JCU) has for years endeavored to disseminate important information about children in developing countries and UNICEF’s various assistance programmes there, as well as to fundraise to support those programmes. Unprecedented damage caused by the East Japan Earthquake,... however, forced us to ask ourselves what we could do to help, and we wasted no time in contacting UNICEF Headquarters in New York.
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Trials (2018) 19:271 https://doi.org/10.1186/s13063-018-2604-9
Based on the findings of this trial, we will examine the potential use and scale up of iSupport for caregiver distress in India. This style of online self-help programs could be expanded to other regions or countries or to other suitabl...e caregiver groups
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This report addresses the impact of emergency shelter programs in the development of post-relief economies and in building incomes of affected populations. It provides a review and analysis of the available literature relevant to understanding the economic impact of emergency shelter programs, addit...ional research conducted by CHF International on income development of beneficiaries of emergency shelter programs, and the first steps toward rigorous and accurate measurement of the impact of these programs on the incomes of beneficiaries. Each of these analysis provides information useful to future programmers of relief assistance.
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Results from a High Frequency Cell Phone Survey November 19, 2014
Ebola has substantially impacted all sectors of employment in the Liberian economy, in both affected and non-affected counties, according to the most recent round of mobile phone surveys conducted by the World Bank Group in partnersh...ip with the Liberian Institute of Statistics and Geo-Information Services and the Gallup Organization. In all, nearly half of those working in Liberia when the Ebola outbreak began are no longer working as of early November 2014
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The Demographic Dividend study on Rwanda assessed the socio-economic and human development potential of our country in the short, medium and long-term period using a comprehensive approach. It generated relevant policy and programme information to guide a well-informed polciy required to propel Rwan...da towards achieving its aspirations of being high middle income country by 2035 and high income country by 2050.
The primary objectives of this study were to assess Rwanda’s prospects for harnessing the demographic dividend and demonstrate priority policy and programme options that the country should adopt in order to optimise its chances of earning a maximum demographic dividend in the context of its youthful population and medium, long-term socio-economic development aspirations.
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Pakistan Global Antibiotic Resistance Partnership (GARP) was formed in the wake of international and national efforts for AMR curtailment. A group of experts from microbiology, infectious diseases and veterinary medicine formed a core group at the organizational meet...ing of GARP in Kathmandu, Nepal in July 2016. In the meeting, this core group was expanded to include other members from different sectors with the selection of the Chair and co-chairs. These were asked to serve on a voluntary basis, in their own individual capacities, with no personal gains, or gains to the institutions to which they are affiliated. The first phase of GARP took place from 2009 to 2011 and involved four countries: India, Kenya, South Africa and Vietnam. Phase one culminated in the 1st Global Forum on Bacterial Infections, held in October 2011 in New Delhi, India. In 2012, phase two of GARP was initiated with the addition of working groups in Mozambique, Tanzania, Nepal and Uganda. Phase three has added Bangladesh, Lao PDR, Nigeria, Pakistan and Zimbabwe to the network to date.
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Deeply concerned by the morbidity and mortality caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, the negative impacts on physical and mental health and social well-being, the negative impacts on economies and societies and the consequent exacerbation of inequalities within and between countries.
Three billion people – 40 per cent of the world’s population – do not have a place in their homes to wash their hands with water and soap. Three quarters of those who lack access to water and soap live in the world’s poorest countries and are amongst the most vulnerable: children and familie...s living in informal settlements, migrant and refugee camps, or in areas of active conflict. This puts an estimated 1 billion people at immediate risk of COVID-19 simply because they lack basic handwashing facilities.
The Hand Hygiene for All initiative aims to move the world towards this goal: supporting the most vulnerable communities with the means to protect their health and environment. It brings together international partners, national governments, public and private sectors, and civil society to ensure affordable products and services are available, especially in disadvantaged areas, and to enable a culture of hygiene.
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This document, endorsed by the WHO Strategic Advisory Group of Experts on Immunization, provides guiding principles to support countries in their decision-making regarding provision or resumption of immunization services during severe disruptive events such as COVID-19, natural disasters or humanita...rian emergencies. It incorporates the Immunization Agenda 2030 principles of being people-centred, country-owned, partnership-based and data-guided.
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Malnutrition in childhood and pregnancy has many adverse consequences for child survival and long-term well-being. It
also has far-reaching consequences for human capital, economic productivity, and national development overall. The
consequences of malnutrition should be a significant concern for ...policy makers in Burkina Faso, since around 672,000
children under 5 years (21 percent) suffer from chronic malnutrition (stunting or low height-for-age) and 10 percent
suffer from acute malnutrition (wasting or low weight-for-height) (Ministère de la Santé [MOH] et al. 2018).
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9 September 2020
In a snapshot, fair allocation of vaccines will occur in the following way:
An initial proportional allocation of doses to countries until all countries reach enough quantities to cover 20% of their population
This document is also available in Arabic | Chinese | French | R...ussian | Spanish | Portuguese
A follow-up phase to expand coverage to other populations. If severe supply constraints persist, a weighted allocation approach would be adopted, taking account of a country’s COVID threat and vulnerability.
The document is a final working document and may be adjusted in the future as new information about the vaccines and the epidemiology of COVID-19 becomes available.
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The report “Build back fairer: achieving health equity in the Eastern Mediterranean Region” provides ground breaking insights into the state of health inequities in the Region and urges countries to take action to address the social determinants of health to reverse the worsening trend of inequi...ty – aggravated by the COVID-19 pandemic, ongoing conflict, mass movements of people, environmental challenges, gender inequities and unemployment.
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Global UNIDO Project: Strengthening the local production of essential medicines in least developed and developing countries
This research report offers community perceptions of COVID-19 from migrants, refugees, host communities and indigenous populations in nine countries in the Americas: Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Colombia, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Jamaica, Panama and Trinidad and Tobago.
It reveals the myriad impacts ...that COVID-19 has had, and continues to have, on vulnerable and hard-to-reach populations. And it offers hands-on recommendations around the impact and usefulness of health information; trust, awareness and access to vaccines; and the socio-economic impact of the pandemic.
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The health and socioeconomic crisis triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic has hit the countries of Latin America hard and laid bare the profound inequities about which numerous international, regional and national reports have sounded warnings in recent decades. In this context, the historical politica...l and economic exclusion and marginalization of the more than 800 indigenous peoples in the region has been accentuated as a result of insufficient State responses to the crisis, which have not adequately considered the collective rights of these peoples and have had little cultural relevance.
This document provides an overview of the situation of indigenous peoples in the region in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic. It analyses both the State’s and indigenous peoples’ own responses to the crisis, as well as offering a set of recommendations to rectify the neglect of these peoples in the management of the pandemic, centring on their collective rights.
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Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) as a serious public health threat was globally acknowledged by WHO in 2015, through the launch of the Global Action Plan (GAP). With a limited number of new antibiotics in the developmental pipeline, many countries are in the process of establishing strategies for anti...microbial stewardship (AMS). Within each country, different healthcare challenges have
contributed to AMR. This has also shaped individual AMS strategies and policies. In South Africa (SA), there is a high burden of infectious diseases, mainly of bacterial origin. In addition, SA also has the highest number of people living with
human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) globally. According to the 2019 statistics, there are approximately 7.97 million people living with HIV in SA. Together with this, SA has the fourth largest tuberculosis population globally.
Other important challenges include poverty, malnutrition, a high burden of non-communicable diseases, and a dire shortage of trained healthcare professionals (e.g. clinicians, pharmacists, and nurses).
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Despite the increasing uptake of information and communication technologies (ICT) within healthcare services across developing countries, community healthcare workers (CHWs) have limited knowledge to fully utilise computerised clinical systems and mobile apps. The ‘Introduction to Information and ...Communication Technology and eHealth’ course was developed with the aim to provide CHWs in Malawi, Africa, with basic knowledge and computer skills to use digital solutions in healthcare delivery. The course was delivered using a traditional and a blended learning approach.
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A System of Health Accounts 2011: Revised Edition provides an updated and systematic description of the financial flows related to the consumption of health care goods and services. As demands for information increase and more countries implement and institutionalise health accounts according to the... system, the data produced are expected to be more comparable, more detailed and more policy relevant. It builds on the original OECD Manual, published in 2000, and the Guide to Producing National Health Accounts to create a single global framework for producing health expenditure accounts that can help track resource flows from sources to uses. It is the result of a collaborative effort between the OECD, WHO and the European Commission, and sets out in more detail the boundaries, the definitions and the concepts – responding to health care systems around the globe – from the simplest to the more complicated.
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