The National Strategic Plan 2009-2012 on HIV and AIDS (NSP) is the result of more than a year of preparatory work, starting with the development of Rwanda's Economic Development and Poverty Reduction Strategy (EDPRS) 2008-2012, which sets out the overarching goals for the response to HIV and AIDS as... well as reaffirming Rwanda's commitment to a multi-sector response. In addition, a wide range of analyses carried out in 2007 and 2008 have helped to ensure that the NSP is based on the most up to date understanding of the epidemic, that the strategies are based on evidence of what works in Rwanda and elsewhere, and that the strengths and weaknesses of the systems and mechanisms for responding to HIV and AIDS are addressed through the NSP.
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2nd revised edition. Accessed Apri. 17, 2019
Prevention strategies based on scientific evidence working with families, schools, and communities can ensure that children and youth, especially the most marginalized and poor, grow and stay healthy and safe into adulthood and old age. For every dollar ...spent on prevention, at least ten can be saved in future health, social and crime costs.
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NSW Disaster Mental Health Handbook 1
The Disaster Mental Health Manual and associated handbooks are intended as a resource for mental health staff who are seeking background information and practical guidance and resources to assist in a disaster mental health response.
Every year, around 830 000 children die from unintentional or "accidental" injuries. The vast majority of these injuries occur in low-income and middle-income countries. However, dozens of prevention strategies and programmes exist. If they were integrated into other child survival programmes and im...plemented on a larger scale, many of these deaths and much of the injury-related disability could be prevented.
The report documents the magnitude, risks and prevention measures for child injuries globally –particularly for drowning, burns, road traffic injuries, falls and poisoning.
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WHO TRS N°1012.
Key updates include: (i) surveillance strategies, including cross-sectoral linking of systems and suitable diagnostics; (ii) the latest recommendations on human and animal immunization; (iii) palliative care in lowresource settings; (iv) risk assessment to guide management of bite... victims; and (v) a proposed process for validation and verification of countries reaching zero human deaths from rabies.
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These guidelines provide new and updated recommendations on the use of point-of-care testing in children under 18 months of age and point-of-care tests to monitor treatment in people living with HIV; the treatment monitoring algorithm; and timing of antiretroviral therapy (ART) among people living w...ith HIV who are being treated for tuberculosis.
New recommendations launched today outline key new actions that countries can take to improve the delivery of HIV testing, treatment and care services by providing greater options for differentiated approaches such as, supporting HIV treatment start in the community, ensuring that children are diagnosed and treated early, and that viral load treatment monitoring is more accessible, focused and triggers clinical action
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The WHO operational handbook on tuberculosis: tuberculosis preventive treatment is the companion, implementation guide to the 2020 WHO guidelines on TB preventive treatment.[1] Just as these guidelines are the first to be released under the rubric of the WHO consolidated TB guidelines, this handbook... will be the first in a modular series of practical guides meant for the implementers of various aspects of the programmatic management TB.
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Many African countries were amongst the most rapid to respond to the emerging threat of COVID-19, implementing large-scale interventions at very early stages of their epidemic. As demonstrated in this document using very simple models, this rapid mobilization and timeliness of implementing control m...easures is likely to be an important determinant of their success. Indeed, as these measures were relaxed, subsequent waves of disease have been observed in many countries including South Africa, Kenya, Tunisia, Morocco, Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) where such waves have severely impacted the health system by straining the supply of oxygen and ICU beds and inflicting a heavy toll on healthcare workers, often necessitating the re-imposition of control measures.
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Enabling young children to achieve their full developmental potential is a human right and an essential requisite for sustainable development. Given the critical importance of enabling children to make the best start in life, the health sector, among other sectors, has an important role and responsi...bility to support nurturing care for early childhood development. This guideline provides direction for strengthening policies and programmes to better address early childhood development.
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The portable diagnostic imaging technology covered by this document will serve not only the pressing demands for tuberculosis screening and triage but also other diseases. Therefore, the requirements, accessories, hardware and software packages listed in the following specifications are described in... detail in order to serve also other pathologies and conditions, like trauma and pneumonia.
Through the definition of "minimum technical requirements", this document is recommended to support decision-making regarding the selection, incorporation, allocation and use of portable X-ray systems and is intended for health care providers, managers of imaging departments, procurement and regulatory agencies, policymakers and planning officers in ministries of health, as well as biomedical engineering professionals, medical physicists, the private health sector, medical device industry and intergovernmental and international agencies.
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his Framework begins with a desired future scenario and considers actions and interventions necessary to get there. It advocates for holistic view to address tuberculosis. The Framework revisits challenges and actions in four layers: TB specific; challenges in health systems that influence TB care; ...challenges in sectors beyond health that determine TB; and overarching governance issues. Multisectoral action and accountability are embedded in the Framework. The Framework is based on the principles of people-centered care and system development.
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Epidemics of infectious diseases are occurring more often, and spreading faster and further than ever, in many different regions of the world. The background factors of this threat are biological, environmental and lifestyle changes, among others. A potentially fatal combination of newly-discovered ...diseases, and the re-emergence of many long-established ones, demands urgent responses in all countries. Planning and preparation for epidemic prevention and control are essential. The purpose of this “Managing epidemics” manual is to provide expert guidance on those responses.
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These guidelines provide updated evidence-based recommendations on the priority HCV-related topics from the 2018 WHO Guidelines for the care and treatment of persons diagnosed with chronic hepatitis C infection and the 2017 WHO Guidelines on hepatitis B and C testing. These priority areas are:
... direct-acting antiviral (DAA) treatment of adolescents and children ages ≥3 years of age
simplified HCV service delivery (decentralization, integration and task sharing)
HCV diagnostics – use of point-of-care (POC) HCV ribonucleic acid (RNA) assays and reflex HCV RNA testing.
These guidelines also update existing chapters without new recommendations, such as the inclusion of new manufacturers’ protocols on the use of dried blood spot (DBS) for HCV RNA testing and new data to inform the limit of detection for HCV RNA assays as a test of cure, in addition to their use for diagnosis.
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The Practical manual on laboratory strengthening, 2022 update provides practical guidance on implementation of WHO recommendations and best practices for TB laboratory strengthening. It is an updated version of the GLI Practical Guide to Laboratory Strengthening published in 2017 and provides the la...test practical guidance on use of newly recommended diagnostics as well as guidance in key technical areas, including quality assurance and quality management systems, specimen collection and registration, procurement and supply-chain management, diagnostic connectivity, biosafety, data management, human resources, strategic planning, and model algorithms. The key changes are:
inclusion of recent or updated WHO recommendations for tests to diagnose TB and detect drug resistance;
alignment with the latest WHO critical concentrations for phenotypic drug-susceptibility testing (DST) and the new definitions of pre-XDR-TB and XDR-TB;
updated information on building quality-assured TB testing and management capacity using the Stepwise Laboratory Quality Improvement Process Towards Accreditation (SLIPTA) approach (Score-TB package1);
updated information on assessing, analysing and optimising TB diagnostic networks; and
updated information on the use of next-generation sequencing (NGS) to detect mutations associated with drug resistance for surveillance purposes.
The document also provides references to resources and tools relevant for work on laboratory strengthening.
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Report of the WHO/Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Consultation. The Consultation was organized back-to-back with the first annual meeting of the International Coordinating Group of the BMGF-funded project for human and dog rabies elimination in developing countries, held at WHO headquarters, Geneva,... Switzerland, from 5 to 7 October 2009. This allowed the Consultation to benefit from the participation of the national coordinators and advisers of the BMGF-funded projects in the Philippines, South Africa (KwaZulu-Natal) and the United Republic of Tanzania
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During the year 2022, COVID-19 continued to be a significant challenge in Eritrea as in many other countries across the world. As COVID-19 devastated communities around the world, WHO worked with the MoH to strengthen the National and Sub-National health systems in order to meet community needs and ...mitigate the devastation during the pandemic and beyond.
One of the major achievements in the year 2022 was the beginning of the journey towards validation of
the elimination of mother to child transmission of HIV, syphilis, and hepatitis B. This is the culmination of years
of commitment and determination by the political leadership, national and international partnerships to
reduce the associated indices to levels that qualify for elimination.
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Since 2000, concerted efforts by national programmes, supported by public–private partnerships, nongovernmental organizations, donors and academia under the auspices and coordination of the World Health Organization (WHO), have produced important achievements in the control of human African trypan...osomiasis (HAT). As a consequence, the disease was targeted for elimination as a public health problem by 2020. The Sixty-sixth World Health Assembly endorsed this goal in resolution WHA66.12 on neglected tropical diseases, adopted in 2013.
National sleeping sickness control programmes (NSSCPs) are core to progressing control of the disease and in adapting to the different epidemiological situations. The involvement of different partners, as well as the support and trust of long-term donors, has been crucial for the achievements.
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Lack of trained providers capable of identifying which labouring women could benefit from assisted vaginal birth (AVB), and of safely performing the procedure is a major barrier for its use. Education and training are, therefore, considered crucial for building skills and confidence in conducting AV...B and there is evidence that it would be welcomed by healthcare providers. However, acquiring and maintaining AVB skills is a complex task that requires a supportive environment, mentorship, supervision and accountability. As with other practices to manage infrequent procedures and complications, continuous education and on-site supervision are essential to ensure the safe and sustainable use of AVB.
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Promoting and protecting health is essential to human welfare and sustained economic and social development. This was recognized more than 30 years ago by the Alma-Ata Declaration signatories, who noted that Health for All would contribute
both to a better quality of life and also to global peace a...nd security
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The 2023 meeting of the WHO Clinical Consortium on Healthy Ageing (CCHA) was the group’s ninth gathering and took place in Geneva 5–7 December 2023. The meeting was structured around seven panels, with a series of technical presentations, plenary discussions and group work, and a final session o...utlining the work programme for 2024.
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