Testing coverage is a critical component of pandemic response, providing a view on the data available to inform policy and monitor the effectiveness of public health measures. While many countries do not publish official numbers of tests conducted, others are doing this across individual websites, s...tatistical reports and press releases, often in multiple languages and updated with different periodicity. FIND is working to build a global picture of the testing coverage for COVID-19 and facilitate the accurate interpretation and study of case and death numbers.
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Limited coverage of laboratory services and long turnaround times from real-time reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (rRT-PCR) for the detection of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) has been insufficient to meet the demands in many African countries in response... to the COVID-19 pandemic. Rapid antigen diagnostic tests (AgRDTs) are potentially useful as they can inform healthcare workers and individuals of their infection status at point-of-care testing
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The immunization program has been going well until a rumor begins that one child in a community far from the capital has become sick after receiving a vaccine. The rumor is becoming stronger every day and is picking up coverage on local radio.
Concerned that the rumor might make caregivers concer...ned about bringing their children for vaccination, a few frontline workers (FLWs) go to the house of the children who fell sick. They find out from the child's mother that she never thought her son was sick due to the vaccination he received. The mother agrees to speak to other caregivers during a community gathering to explain that her son's illness was not caused by his vaccination. She also responds to a few questions to reassure other caregivers about the safety and advantages of immunization.
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Stock-outs of antimalarials cause unnecessary deaths among an estimated 219 million people afflicted worldwide. Good pharmaceutical information systems can avoid stock-outs with timely, accurate data and high reporting rates that ensure the continuous availability of critically-needed antimalarials....
The US Agency for International Development (USAID)-funded Systems for Increased Access to Pharmaceuticals and Services (SIAPS) Program, with support from the US Government’s Presidential Malaria Initiative (PMI), is working with the Government of Guinea to improve the national malaria reporting system. By the end of September 2013, after only a few months of training in all 19 PMI-supported zones, reporting rates had improved significantly, reaching an average completion rate of 85 percent for health facilities during the previous quarter.
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This report provides an overview of the progress in the roll-out of COVID-19 vaccines in adults (aged 18 years and above) across EU/EEA Member States. It presents the number of vaccine doses distributed by manufacturers to each Member State for the different approved vaccines and the number of first..., second or unspecified doses administered to adult individuals overall, by age group and other selected target groups including healthcare workers (HCW) and residents in long-term care facilities (LTCF).
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This e-learning course is designed for front-line managers of institutions hosting or serving people who are medially or socially vulnerable to the impact of COVID-19. It is a non-moderated and self-paced course. You can decide when to start it, interrupt and resume to continue at any time. In total..., the course is designed to take from 1 to 3 hours to complete. The content of this course is available in all 24 EU official working languages.
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2nd edition. Children with TB comprise about 10-12% of the total TB cases diagnosed in the country. This burden is likely to be higher given the challenges in diagnosing TB in children. The symptoms of TB in children mimic those of other childhood diseases. Children do not readily expectorate and th...ey have pauci-bacillary TB hence some will be missed using bacteriological tests. The government has however introduced GeneXpert molecular testing that is more sensitive than microscopy in detecting TB. Health care workers therefore need a reference guide to obtaining sputum from children for testing. Treatment of TB in children has been reviewed and now includes Ethambutol. There are now improved paediatric friendly TB medicines for treatment of TB in children and health care workers need a reference guide to enable them accurately dispense the TB medicine to children. Malnutrition is a common predisposing factor for TB in children. On the other hand, TB predisposes children to malnutrition or worsens an existing state of malnutrition. Nutrition care and support forms an integral part of treatment for a child with TB disease.
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interim Guidance 1 December 2020. Updated version
This document provides updated guidance on mask use in health care and community settings, and during home care for COVID-19 cases. It is intended for policy makers, public health and infection prevention and control professionals, health care manag...ers and health workers.
The Annex provides advice on how to manufacture non-medical masks. It is intended for those making non-medical masks at home and for mask manufacturers
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Over 18 months into the pandemic, WHO continues to conductglobal surveillance of COVID-19as part of activities on preparedness, readiness and response activities. The need for global surveillance of COVID-19 is greater than ever, asthe implementation of vaccination campaigns and the appearance of va...riants are prone to impact the course of the epidemic, as transmission patterns evolve. Timely and complete surveillance data are key to monitoring these changes.
Features include stratification by age and sex, trends over time, case fatality ratios by age, testing, hospitalization, and data on health workers –all visible at country and regional levels. The dashboard provides the ability for users to conduct further analyses by country and selected time period.
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GO VIRAL! helps protect you against COVID-19 misinformation. You’ll learn about some of the most common ways false and misleading information about the virus are spread. Understanding these tricks allows you to resist them the next time you come across them online. Scientists who worked with us on... the development of GO VIRAL! found that playing the game significantly improves people’s ability to spot misinformation about COVID-19.
The recommended age for GO VIRAL! is 15+. Although the game has received a PEGI-age rating of 3 (i.e., the game has been deemed suitable for persons age 3 and up), the game does include some themes that may be interpreted as sensitive, especially to people under the age of 15. If you are unsure, always ask for parental consent.
Spread the word – fight the spread of misinformation by challenging your friends and family to GO VIRAL!
Available in different languages
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Vaccines are designed to give you immunity without the dangers of getting the disease. It’s common to experience some mild to moderate side effects when receiving vaccinations. This is because your immune system instructs your body to increase blood flow so more immune cells can circulate, and it ...raises your body temperature to kill the virus. Vaccines help protect us against disease and feeling mild or moderate side effects after receiving one is a sign that the vaccine and our immune system is working.
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Bangladesh has been going through incremental trend of GDP growth rates for a long time. The GDP is the key aspect to measure the economic growth of a country. But the current world wide pandemic due to the COVID-19 hardly affects the world’s economy as well as Bangladesh. The present... lockdown make the wheel of the industries uncertain. The main source of the GDP of this country is ready made garment sector which has been shut down since mid of March 2020. Already 20 billion of cancellation of foreign order makes the situation worse. Also, the foreign remittance has been decline dramatically due to the loss of jobs of Bangladeshi workers in foreign countries. The overall economic situation declines in this country due to the COVID-19 which has huge impact on the health care system especially in maternal and child health. In this paper, the economic situation of Bangladesh before and during the COVID-19 has been shown. Also, how the COVID-19 would affect the condition
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Version 2.3 , 21 April 2022. The CVIC tool supports credible COVID-19 vaccination costing to facilitate a dialogue with stakeholders, while maintaining sensitivity to protect essential health services.
The CVIC tool provides a structured and comprehensive estimation of incremental operational and... selected capital costs of introducing and deploying COVID-19 vaccines, in alignment with the National Deployment and Vaccination Plan (NDVP). This is essential for resource mobilization, budgeting, and delivery strategy refinement and optimization. The tool has been pre-populated with data from global databases and provides a total cost estimate over an immunization programme over the period of 2021-2023, after which COVID-19 vaccination is expected to be integrated into national immunization plans. Countries can customize the priority target populations based on WHO SAGE guidance and select multiple delivery strategies and vaccine products. The tool is available in all six UN working languages (Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian and Spanish) and Portuguese. An e-learning course on CVIC is available at OpenWHO.
In this updated version 2.3 of the tool, some minor bugs have been fixed and new features have been added
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Primary health care offers a cost–effective route to achieving universal health coverage (UHC). However, primary health-care systems are weak in many low- and middle-income countries and often fail to provide comprehensive, people-centred, integrated care. We analysed the primar...y health-care systems in 20 low- and middle-income countries using a semi-grounded approach. Options for strengthening primary health-care systems were identified by thematic content analysis. We found that: (i)despite the growing burden of noncommunicable disease, many low- and middle-income countries lacked funds for preventive services; (ii)community health workers were often under-resourced, poorly supported and lacked training; (iii)out-of-pocket expenditure exceeded 40% of total health expenditure in half the countries studied, which affected equity; and (iv)health insurance schemes were hampered by the fragmentation of public and private systems, underfunding, corruption and poor engagement of informal workers. In 14 countries, the private sector was largely unregulated. Moreover, community engagement in primary health care was weak in countries where services were largely privatized. In some countries, decentralization led to the fragmentation of primary health care. Performance improved when financial incentives were linked to regulation and quality improvement, and community involvement was strong. Policy-making should be supported by adequate resources for primary health-care implementation and government spending on primary health care should be increased by at least 1% of gross domestic product. Devising equity-enhancing financing schemes and improving the accountability of primary health-care management is also needed. Support from primary health-care systems is critical for progress towards UHC in the decade to 2030.
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sur la base des orientations actuelles de l’OMS, 31 may 2021. Aide mémoire
This aide-mémoire presents information on use and procurement of masks for community outreach interventions, with a focus on those for malaria, neglected tropical diseases, tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS and vaccine-preventable ...diseases. It details requirements for the different types of professionals involved (e.g. health workers, social mobilizers, data collectors, logisticians, insecticide spraying personnel, etc.), based on their level of risk of potential exposure to SARS-CoV-2.
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sobre la base de las orientaciones actuales de la OMS, 31 de mayo de 2021. Memorando
This aide-mémoire presents information on use and procurement of masks for community outreach interventions, with a focus on those for malaria, neglected tropical diseases, tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS and vaccine-preve...ntable diseases. It details requirements for the different types of professionals involved (e.g. health workers, social mobilizers, data collectors, logisticians, insecticide spraying personnel, etc.), based on their level of risk of potential exposure to SARS-CoV-2.
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Here is a mini relaxation exercise that includes a short deep breathing exercise followed by an autogenic visualization that will help elicit a feeling of warmth, heaviness and deep relaxation.
Autogenic relaxation is a form of self-hypnosis that involves giving yourself verbal cues to relax. It ...helps calm the mind and aids the body to return to a normal state of balance. A wonderful feeling of peace and relaxation results from doing autogenic relaxation. This is a mini sample and I will record a longer full version of an Autogenic relaxation very soon so please stay tuned!
The script for the visualization of this audio was inspired and adapted by the Autogenic Breathing exercise found in the "The Relaxation & Stress Reduction Workbook" (p.111) by Martha Davis PhD. This workbook is a wonderful resource for stress management and relaxation training!
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These organisations have joined forces to accelerate access to COVID-19 vaccines, therapeutics and diagnostics by leveraging multilateral finance and trade solutions, particularly for low- and middle-income countries.
The aim is to vaccinate at least 40 percent of people in every country by the end... of 2021, and at least 60 percent by mid-2022. The effort will track, coordinate, and advance delivery of COVID-19 vaccines, therapeutics and diagnostics, working with governments and partners at the global and local levels to address finance and trade barriers to ensure that vulnerable populations have access to these life-saving tools. It supports the goals of the ACT-Accelerator and complementary initiatives.
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This film explains the importance of antenatal care and in particular, the principles of ‘focused antenatal care’ (FANC). It describes what is involved in the four visits that make up FANC, including taking a patient’s history, examinations, checks and giving information.
This film is for u...se in health worker training
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Please find all relevant guidelines and information in our new Pharmacy Toolbox.
The PHARMACY TOOLBOX is a comprehensive knowledge repository to provide its users with practical, up-to-date information on medicines and good pharmaceutical practices. It collates basic documents on (essential) medici...nes, guidelines, rational use, access, and good quality of medicines. All health workers who prescribe, handle or dispense medicines find an electronic key pharmacy knowledge hub.
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