The Ghanaian Cabinet approved the antimicrobial resistance (AMR)Policy and Implementation plan(hereafter referred to as the national action plan or  NAP)in December 2017, whilst the country case study was in progress. This has set in motion the implementation phase for Ghana, which is a long awaited... event since the drafting of the Policy started in 2011. This  case  study,  whilst  limited  in  its  ability  to  interact  with  all  stakeholders, has identified entrypoints within the operational divisions of Ghana Health Services,as potential areas where the AMR policy platform may seek to embed AMR activities. Much work has already been done within Ghana to identify the key entrypoints within the various ministries and government agencieswhere AMR can be incorporated. These stakeholders already form part of the AMR Policy Platform which is the governance structure for AMR and have been participating actively in the development of the AMR Policy and NAP activities formulation.
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                                                                Cervical  cancer  is  the  second  most  common  cancer  among  women worldwide and causes a significant number of deaths in the South-East Asia Region. Nearly 200 000 new cases of cervical  cancer  occurred  in  SEA  Region  Member  States  in  2008,  giving  an  incidence  of  almost  25  per  100...  000  and  a  mortality rate of almost 14 per 100 000. Cervical cancer can be  prevented  by  early  screening  and  vaccination.  However,  due  to  poor  access  to  screening  and  treatment  services,  the  vast  majority  of  these  deaths  occur  in  women  from  nine  Member States of the South-East Asia Region which account for  more  than  one  third  of  the  global  burden  of  cervical  cancer.
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                                                                This report is primarily intended for the community of policymakers and researchers concerned about the rising risks of domestic, regional, and global infectious disease epidemics, and the collective failure to take the coordinated actions required to reduce such risks. These risks include the expec...ted health, economic, and societal costs that are borne by countries, regions, and even all nations in the case of pandemics (which are worldwide epidemics). These risks also include the consequences of increasing antimicrobial resistance (AMR) and its spread within regions and globally. A necessary first step is to monitor whether a broad range of stakeholders are acting to prevent outbreaks from becoming epidemics, whether their capacities to respond to epidemics are robust, and whether preparedness to respond to pandemics and limit the resulting economic and health damage is improving. Analyzing the adequacy of these efforts is vitally important for the decisions of policymakers to invest in the public health and disaster-risk management capacities. Early and effective control of disease outbreaks prevents substantial health and economic costs whether or not the disease can spread globally and become a pandemic.
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                                                                Community health nurses have the potential to make significant contributions to meet the health care needs of various population groups in a variety of community settings. In order to assess the extent to which CHNs are achieving this potential, WHO conducted a study between 2010 and 2014 that exami...ned the status of community health nursing in 22 countries, 13 of which were experiencing a critical shortage of health care workers. The study revealed that the countries surveyed had the basic and operational framework for optimizing CHN in their health systems as evidenced by the availability of PHC structures to guide interventions. However, challenges were identified related to the education, practice and management of CHNs in these countries. The major challenges identified were: Limited availability of career opportunities; poor worker retention; low recognition for CHNs; inadequate and unsupportive working conditions and environments; absence of educational standards; varying educational entry-level requirements for CHN programmes; and a lack of consensus on the scope of practice for CHNs.
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                                                                Asthma is the most common chronic disease in children, imposing a consistent burden on health system. In recent years, prevalence of asthma symptoms became globally increased in children and adolescents, particularly in Low-Middle Income Countries (LMICs). Host (genetics, atopy) and environmental fa...ctors (microbial exposure, exposure to passive smoking and air pollution), seemed to contribute to this trend. The increased prevalence observed in metropolitan areas with respect to rural ones and, overall, in industrialized countries, highlighted the role of air pollution in asthma inception. Asthma accounts for 1.1% of the overall global estimate of “Disability-adjusted life years” (DALYs)/100,000 for all causes. Mortality in children is low and it decreased across Europe over recent years. Children from LMICs particularly suffer a disproportionately higher burden in terms of morbidity and mortality. Global asthma-related costs are high and are usually are classified into direct, indirect and intangible costs. Direct costs account for 50–80% of the total costs. Asthma is one of the main causes of hospitalization which are particularly common in children aged < 5 years with a prevalence that has been increased during the last two decades, mostly in LMICs. Indirect costs are usually higher than in older patients, including both school and work-related losses. Intangible costs are unquantifiable, since they are related to impairment of quality of life, limitation of physical activities and study performance. The implementation of strategies aimed at early detect asthma thus providing access to the proper treatment has been shown to effectively reduce the burden of the disease.
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                                                                What can you expect?
As a future facilitator your role will be to learn about the structure of mhGAP-IG, how to teach the materials and utilize opportunities to prastice facilitation and supervision skills.
As a supervisor your role will be to serve as a point of reference for non-specialized heal...th-care providers, supporting them in providing service for individuals with MNS disorders in non-specialized health settings.
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                                                                A community-based approach.
These guidelines focus on manmade rather than natural disasters, but our experiences in India, El Salvador and Pakistan (earthquake interventions), and following the 2004 tsunami, cyclone Nargis in 2008 and the Haiti earthquake in 2010, showed that the principles describ...ed also work well in contexts of natural disasters. 
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                                                                The WHO Quality Toolkit: Navigating tools to improve the quality of health services helps easy identification and access to a wide range of WHO published materials to improve the quality of health services. These tools support the actions described in the Quality health services: a planning guide, w...hich outlines a structured, systems-based approach to improving quality of health services. Whether you work at the facility, sub-national or national level, or in specific communities, you will find resources within the Quality Toolkit to help you carry out essential tasks to improve quality of care
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                                                                Guidance has been updated on a number of chemicals: asbestos, bentazone, chromium, iodine, manganese, microcystins, nickel, silver, tetrachloroethene and trichloroethene. Guidance has also been added for chemicals not previously assessed in the Guidelines: anatoxin-a and analogues, cylindrospermopsi...ns and saxitoxins. The new guidance on organotins has replaced the prior guidance focused on dialkyltins. With these updates, the guideline values for tetrachloroethene and trichloroethene have been revised while new guideline values for cylindrospermopsins, manganese, microcystins, and saxitoxins have been established .
Updated information on cyanobacteria has been included, introducing an alert level framework for early-warning and to guide short-term management responses. Guidance has also been updated in the sections on adequacy of water supply, climate change, emergencies, food production and processing, and radiological aspects, particularly on managing radionuclides when exceeding WHO screening values and guidance levels.
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                                                                These Guidelines are intended to provide knowledge to the treating ophthalmologists, pediatricians, ocular oncologists, pediatric oncologists, and general physicians to arrive at an early diagnosis of retinoblastoma in the settings of district hospital, in private clinics and hospitals. The guidelin...es will enable the contact health personnel to refer at the right
time to the tertiary care hospital for management of retinoblastoma.
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                                                                Interim guidance2 November 2020
This  interim  guidance,  originally  entitled  “Harmonized  health  service  capacity  assessments  in  the  context  of  the  COVID-19  pandemic”,  is  an  update  to  the  earlier  version  published  on  31  May  2020  as  “Harmonized  modules  for  health ... facility  assessment  modules  in  the  context of the COVID-19 pandemic”. In this update, module content has been further refined and developed
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                                                                MODULE 5 RESOURCE GUIDE | This guide is part of a series of manuals that focuses on six topics in Early Childhood Development (ECD): different programming approaches, basic concepts, assessments, early childhood environments, children with special needs and child protection, and the health, safety a...nd nutrition of young children. The series was prepared within a three-year CRS-led project called “Strengthening the Capacity of Women Religious in Early Childhood Development,” or “SCORE ECD.” Funded by the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation, the project helps Catholic sisters in Kenya, Malawi, and Zambia in their work with children aged 0-5 years and their families. The project is being implemented from January 2014 to December 2016
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                                                                This manual describes methods for investigating clusters or outbreaks that may be of chemical origin and describes the importance of a structured, coordinated, collaborative multidisciplinary, multi-agency approach at local, regional, national and international levels.
                                                            
                         
                     
                                                        
                        
                        
                            
                            
                                                                We will soon be piloting a project titled “Integrating Spirituality into Patient Care” that will form “spiritual care teams” to assess and address patients’ spiritual needs in physician  outpatient  practices  within  Adventist  Health  System,  the  largest  Protestant healthcare  system ... in  the  United  States.This  paper  describes  the  goals,  the  rationale,  and the  structure  of  the  spiritual  care  teams  that  will  soon  be  implemented,  and  discusses  the barriers  to  providing  spiritual  care  that  health  professionals  are  likely  to  encounter.Spiritual care teams may operate in an outpatient or an inpatient setting, and their purpose is  to  provide  health  professionals  with  resources  necessary  to  practice  whole  person healthcare that includes spiritual care.We believe that this project will serve as a model forfaith-based  health  systems  seeking  to  visibly  demonstrate  their  mission  in  a  way  that makes them unique and expresses their values.Not only does this model have the potential to  be  cost-effective,  but  also  the  capacity  to  increase  the  quality  of  patient  care  and  the satisfaction that  health  professionals  derive  from  providing  care.If  successful,  this  model could  spread  beyond  faith-based  systems  to  secular  systems  as  well  both  in the  U.S. and worldwide.
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                                                                The articles in this compendium elaborate on some of the ideas shared at the symposium. Together, they provide a broad view of the dynamic interactions among physical, sexual and brain development that take place during adolescence. They highlight some of the risks to optimal development – includi...ng toxic stress, which can interfere with the formation of brain connections, and other vulnerabilities unique to the onset of puberty and independence. They also point to the opportunities for developing interventions that can build on earlier investments in child development – consolidating gains and even offsetting the effects of deficits and traumas experienced earlier in childhood.
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                                                                The Handbook is a guide to the normative framework for humanitarian action and the operational approaches, coordination structures, and available tools and services that facilitate the mobilization of humanitarian assistance.
                                                            
                         
                     
                                                        
                        
                        
                            
                            
                                                                This report started with a simple question—“How can we tell how much funding is devoted to global health programs?”—and ended (more than two years later) with an answer that is far from simple. As those who have tried know well, tracking health-related funding is challenging in any setting, ...given the range of public and private sources and the many types of services and programs that fall within the definition of “health sector.” It is made all the more complicated when significant external support from donors and private charities plus in-kind donations of drugs and other inputs are taken into account. The task is made yet harder by inadequate public expenditure management systems in countries where public agencies’ capacity is stretched very thin and by donor accounting structures that are not designed to respond in a timely way
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                                                                This document aims to provide global guidance on poliomyelitis (polio) surveillance in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. It comes as a technical complement to Polio eradication programme continuity, Immunization in the context of COVID-19 pandemic frequently asked questions, and is aligned with ...the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI) commitment to support the COVID-19 pandemic response.
It highlights the decision making framework to guide the level of polio surveillance activities at country level including; the measures to put in place to ensure a minimum level of polio surveillance in the field and in the laboratory, and the trigger to return to normal polio function.
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                                                                This manual provides a practical method for determining the pharmacovigilance indices. It is designed to be simple and can be understood by any worker in pharmacovigilance without formal training in monitoring and evaluation. Pharmacovigilance as a medical discipline is crucial in preventing medicin...e-related adverse effects in humans, promoting patient safety, and the rational use of medicines. The indicators proposed in this manual are based on the expected functions of pharmacovigilance centres as described in the WHO Mimimum Requirements for a Functional Pharmacovigilance System (1) (see Annex 1 of the manual).
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                                                                This  field  study  to  measure  access  to  and  use  of  medicines  was  undertaken  in  GHANA  in May-June 2008. The  study  assessed  information  on  the  socio-economic  level  of  households, and access to and use of medicines for acute and chronic conditions as well as opinions and perceptio...ns about medicines. The survey was conducted in six regions. In each region, six reference public  heath  care  facilities  were  selected  among  those  participating  in  the  Level  II  Facility Survey  that was  carried  out in parallel. Within defined distances  from  each reference public health care facility, households were selected by purposive cluster sampling. A total of 1065 household  respondents  were  interviewed  by  means of  a  structured  paper  questionnaire
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