The Government of Malawi’s Health Sector Strategic Plan II highlights the importance of service integration; however, in practice, this has not been fully realized. We conducted a mixed methods evaluation of efforts to systematically implement integrated family planning and immunization services i...n all health facilities and associated community sites in Ntchisi and Dowa districts during June 2016–September 2017. Methods included secondary analysis of service statistics (pre- and postintervention), focus group discussions with mothers and fathers of children under age one, and in-depth interviews with service providers, supervisors, and managers. Results indicate statistically significant increases in family planning users and shifts in use of family planning services from health facilities to community sites. The intervention had no effect on immunization doses administered or dropout rates. According to mothers and fathers, benefits of service integration included time savings, convenience, and improved understanding of services. Provision and use of integrated services were affected by availability of human resources and commodities, community linkages, data collection procedures and availability, sociocultural barriers, organization of services, and supervision and commitment of health surveillance assistants. The integration approach was perceived to be feasible and beneficial by clients and providers.
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INTRODUCTION: Health service use among the public can decline during outbreaks and had been predicted among low and middle-income countries during the COVID-19 pandemic. In March 2020, the government of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) started implementing public health measures across Kin...shasa, including strict lock-down measures in the Gombe health zone.
METHODS: Using monthly time series data from the DRC Health Management Information System (January 2018 to December 2020) and interrupted time series with mixed effects segmented Poisson regression models, we evaluated the impact of the pandemic on the use of essential health services (outpatient visits, maternal health, vaccinations, visits for common infectious diseases and non-communicable diseases) during the first wave of the pandemic in Kinshasa. Analyses were stratified by age, sex, health facility and lockdown policy (i.e, Gombe vs other health zones).
RESULTS: Health service use dropped rapidly following the start of the pandemic and ranged from 16% for visits for hypertension to 39% for visits for diabetes. However, reductions were highly concentrated in Gombe (81% decline in outpatient visits) relative to other health zones. When the lock-down was lifted, total visits and visits for infectious diseases and non-communicable diseases increased approximately twofold. Hospitals were more affected than health centres. Overall, the use of maternal health services and vaccinations was not significantly affected.
CONCLUSION: The COVID-19 pandemic resulted in important reductions in health service utilizsation in Kinshasa, particularly Gombe. Lifting of lock-down led to a rebound in the level of health service use but it remained lower than pre-pandemic levels.
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Multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) and extensively drug-resistant
tuberculosis (XDR-TB) increasingly occur in resource-constrained settings.
In the context of a national response to MDR- and XDR-TB, health workers in
TB clinics (in district hospitals and some accredited health centres) wil...l need
to diagnose MDR-TB, initiate second-line anti-TB drugs, and monitor MDRTB
treatment.
Management of MDR-TB: a field guide was created to help health workers
carry out these tasks. It is a job aid that medical officers and TB nurses
are meant use frequently during the day for quick reference. This module
is closely related to other clinical guideline modules in the Integrated
Management of Adolescent and Adult Illness (IMAI) series. In particular, the
approach to chronic disease management is taken from General principles
of good chronic care in the IMAI series.
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Good mental health is integral to human health and well being. A person’s mental health and many common mental disorders are shaped by various social, economic, and physical environments operating at different stages of life. Risk factors for many common mental disorders are heavily associated wit...h social inequalities, whereby the greater the inequality the higher the inequality in risk.
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This booklet presents key messages for action, summarized from a set of chapters on different environmental health issues, available at www.who.int/ ceh/publications/healthyenvironmentsforhealthychildren. The work is a result of an on-going partnership between WHO, UNEP and UNICEF in the area of chi...ldren’s environmental health, and seeks to update the 2002 joint publication “Children in the New Millennium: Environmental Impact on Health.”
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This timely report comes at a decisive moment in history where
we can reshape urban environments and health systems for the
majority of the world’s population that live in cities. Enabling
this transformation are the SDGs, which have reconfigured how
governments and the international community... need to plan and
implement actions to eradicate poverty and inequality, create
inclusive economic growth, preserve the planet and improve
population health. Central to this quest is to create equitable,
healthier cities for sustainable development.
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Snakebites are well-known medical emergencies in many parts of the world, especially in rural areas. Agricultural workers and children are the most affected. The incidence of snakebite mortality is particularly high in South-East Asia. Rational use of snake anti-venom can substantially reduce mortal...ity and morbidity due to snakebites. These guidelines are a revised and updated version of Regional Guidelines for the Management of snakebites published by the WHO Regional Office in South-East Asia in 2011. These guidelines aim to promote the rational management of snakebite cases in various health facilities where trained health functionaries and quality snake antivenom are available.
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Available in: English, French, Chinese, Spanish, Russian, Arabic, Thai, Korean, Tajik, Vietnamese, Uzbek
http://www.who.int/disabilities/cbr/guidelines/en/
"Achieving, maintaining and improving accuracy, timeliness and reliability are major challenges for health laboratories. Countries worldwide committed themselves to build national capacities for the detection of, and response to, public health events of international concern when they decided to eng...age in the International Health Regulations implementation process. Only sound management of quality in health laboratories will enable countries to produce test results that the international community will trust in cases of international emergency. This handbook is intended to provide a comprehensive reference on Laboratory Quality Management System for all stakeholders in health laboratory processes, from management, to administration, to bench-work laboratorians. This handbook covers topics that are essential for quality management of a public health or clinical laboratory. They are based on both ISO 15189 and CLSI GP26-A3 documents"--Page 7.
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The goal of the draft global action plan is to ensure, for as long as possible, continuity of successful treatment and prevention of infectious diseases with effective and safe medicines that are quality-assured, used in a responsible way, and accessible to all who need them.
The Early Essential Newborn Care Pocket Guide was developed by the WHO Regional Office for the Western Pacific for introducing and scaling-up Early Essential Newborn Care. This step-by-step Guide is intended to provide a portable and practical summary of the up-to-date global evidence for newborn ca...re focusing on the first hours and days of life, including infection prevention and control measures during COVID-19. This Guide can be used in all health-care settings by skilled birth attendants (midwives, nurses and doctors) who care for newborns, also by managers to ensure all system measures are put in place for optimal quality of care.
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The Multi-professional Patient Safety Curriculum Guide (2011) was developed to assist in the teaching of patient safety in universities and schools in the fields of dentistry, medicine, midwifery, nursing and pharmacy. It also supports the on-going training of all health care professionals.
The C...urriculum Guide is comprised of two parts. Part A is a teachers’ guide designed to introduce patient safety concepts to educators. It relates to building capacity for patient safety education, programme planning and design of the courses. Part B provides all-inclusive, ready-to-teach, topic-based patient safety courses that can be used as a whole, or on a per topic basis. There are 11 patient safety topics, each designed to feature a variety of ideas and methods for patient safety learning. Universities are encouraged to start with Part A which provides comprehensive advice on how to introduce and build patient safety courses.
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The WHO Effective Communications Participant Handbook was created to support WHO staff around the world in enhancing their communications skills as part of the global communications capacity-building efforts of the WHO Department of Communications (DCO)
The recommendations in these guidelines promote the use of simple, non-invasive diagnostic tests to assess the stage of liver disease and eligibility for treatment; prioritize treatment for those with most advanced liver disease and at greatest risk of mortality; and recommend the preferred use of n...ucleos(t)ide analogues with a high barrier to drug resistance (tenofovir and entecavir, and entecavir in children aged 2–11 years) for first- and second-line treatment. Recommendations for the treatment of HBV/HIV-coinfected persons are based on the WHO 2013 Consolidated guidelines on the use of antiretroviral drugs for treating and preventing HIV infection, which will be updated in 2015.
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• provide scientific information on the safety, efficacy, and quality control/ quality assurance of widely used medicinal plants, in order to facilitate their appropriate use in Member States;
• provide models to assist Member States in developing their own mono- graphs or formularies for these... or other herbal medicines; and
• facilitate information exchange among Member States.
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This publication is designed to be used by programme planners and managers as a resource when designing interventions to integrate postpartum family planning into national and subnational strategies. Postpartum family planning should not be considered a ‘vertical’ programme, but rather as an int...egrated part of existing maternal and child health and family planning efforts. Successful interventions for postpartum family planning require holistic and evidence-based programme strategies that contribute to strengthened health systems and sustained improvements in high-quality services that put people at the centre of health care
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Economic conditions in Syria are projected to continue to be mired by prolonged armed conflict, turmoil in Lebanon and Turkey, COVID-19, and the war in Ukraine. Subject to extraordinarily high uncertainty, we project that Syria’s real GDP will contract by 2.6 percent in 2022 (to US$ 15.5 billion i...n constant 2015 prices) after declining by 2.1 percent in 2021. Risks to the growth outlook are significant and tilted to the downside.
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access free courses in more than 60 languages
With the increase in frequency of disasters, there is a need to improve early warning systems (EWS) for EA to reduce the risks faced by children and their families. As a consequence, the term early warning, early action (EWEA) has become increasingly common among those responding to slow-onset disas...ters.
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