The COVID-19 Vaccine (Whole Virion Inactivated) BBV152, COVAXIN® vaccine explainer includes key information on the vaccine specific requirements.
Special Focus on COVID-19
The report provides updated estimates for drinking water, sanitation and hygiene in schools including progress from 2015 to 2019. It highlights the rapid improvement needed to ensure students have access to handwashing facilities with soap and water during the COVID-19 pan...demic, and to meet associated SDG targets by 2030.
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This guide also draws on the standard operating procedures (SOPs) to apply for measles outbreak response
support from the Measles & Rubella Initiative Outbreak Response Fund (17) and includes a section on
measles outbreak recovery so that contributing factors and potential root causes are identifi...ed and
addressed systematically after a measles outbreak. This guide does not aim to be a comprehensive guide
on measles elimination or routine immunization (RI) more broadly.
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This guidance is intended for use in developing standalone TB strategic plans, or TB interventions as part of multidisease or health sector plans. It describes key considerations and steps for strategic planning for TB in line with the World Health Organization’s End TB strategy, and the proposed ...structure of the NSP. The target audience of this publication are all stakeholders involved in national strategic planning for TB (e.g., ministry of health, other government ministries, private sector, civil society, affected communities, academic and research institutions, and technical and funding partners).
The current document is an update to the 2015 Toolkit to develop a national strategic plan for TB prevention, care and control.
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Updated 2022. This guide addresses the care pathway from presentation of the patient to a health facility to patient discharge. It considers different levels of disease severity, from asymptomatic individuals to critically ill patients. Accounting for variations in the benefits and harms of chest im...aging in different situations, remarks are provided to describe the circumstances under which each recommendation would benefit patients. The guide also includes implementation considerations for different settings, provides suggestions for impact monitoring and evaluation and identifies knowledge gaps meriting further research.
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A rapid review of evidence on the managing the risk of disease emergence in the wildlife trade - World Animal Health Organization (OIE)
This document provides an overview of malaria trends in all WHO regions as contained in the World malaria report 2021.
As in past years, the report provides an up-to-date assessment of the burden of malaria at global, regional and country levels. It tracks investments in malaria programmes and re...search as well as progress across all intervention areas. This latest report draws on data from 87 countries and territories with ongoing malaria transmission.
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Interim guidance, 26 October 2021
This interim guidance has been developed on the basis of the advice issued by the Strategic Advisory Group of Experts (SAGE) on Immunization at its meeting on 5 October 2021.
SAGE said moderately and severely immunocompromised persons should be offered an addition...al dose of all WHO approved vaccines “since these individuals are less likely to respond adequately to vaccination following a standard primary vaccine series and are at high risk of severe COVID-19 disease.”
People aged 60 and older who received the Sinovac and Sinopharm vaccines should get a third dose too, the experts added, though use of other vaccines may also be considered depending on supply and access.
“When implementing this recommendation, countries should initially aim at maximizing 2-dose coverage in that population, and thereafter administer the third dose, starting in the oldest age groups”, they said.
SAGE has also reviewed a vaccine developed by Indian company Bharat Biotech and will issue a policy recommendation after WHO greenlights it for emergency use.
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The HIV drug resistance report 2021 summarizes findings from 38 countries that had finalized the surveys by the time of this report and shared data with WHO.
Pretreatment HIVDR to non-nucleoside reverse-transcriptase inhibitors (NNRTI) can affect more than 10% of adults starting therapy and is fo...und up to 3 times more often in people who had previous exposure to antiretroviral drugs. In addition, nearly half of infants newly diagnosed with HIV has HIVDR to NNRTI before initiating treatment.The high levels of observed NNRTI pretreatment HIVDR among emphasize the need to fast-track the transition to WHO-recommended dolutegravir-based ART.
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Each year, the WHO Global TB Report provides a comprehensive and up-to-date assessment of the TB epidemic, and of progress in prevention, diagnosis and treatment of the disease, at global, regional and country levels. This is done in the context of global TB commitments, strategies and targets.
The... 2021 edition of the report has been produced in a new and more web-centric format. This is designed to make the content available in smaller (more “bite-sized”) chunks that are easier to read, digest, navigate and use. There is a short and slim report PDF with 30 pages of main content plus six short annexes. This is accompanied by expanded and more detailed digital content on web pages. The total amount of content remains similar to that of previous years.
Available in English, French, Arabic and Chinese
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A group-based stress managment course for adults.
Self-Help Plus (SH+) is WHO’s 5-session stress management course for large groups of up to 30 people. It is delivered by supervised, non-specialist facilitators who complete a short training course and use pre-recorded audio and an illustrated gui...de (Doing What Matters in Times of Stress) to teach stress management skills. The course is suitable for adults who experiences stress, wherever they live and whatever their circumstances. It has been shown to reduce psychological distress and prevent the onset of mental disorders. The format of SH+ makes it well-suited for use alongside other mental health interventions, as a first step in a stepped care programme, or as a community intervention delivered alongside broader community programming.
Download the audio files in English directly from the WHO Website https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/9789240035119
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WHO has developed a clinical case definition of post COVID-19 condition by Delphi methodology that includes 12 domains, available for use in all settings. This first version was developed by patients, researchers and others, representing all WHO regions, with the understanding that the definition ma...y change as new evidence emerges and our understanding of the consequences of COVID-19 continues to evolve.
Post COVID-19 condition occurs in individuals with a history of probable or confirmed SARS CoV-2 infection, usually 3 months from the onset of COVID-19 with symptoms and that last for at least 2 months and cannot be explained by an alternative diagnosis. Common symptoms include fatigue, shortness of breath, cognitive dysfunction but also others and generally have an impact on everyday functioning. Symptoms may be new onset following initial recovery from an acute COVID-19 episode or persist from the initial illness. Symptoms may also fluctuate or relapse over time.
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Every country has been affected by COVID-19, with nearly a quarter
of a billion cases and almost 5 million deaths reported globally as of
end of September 2021. Despite the stunning speed with which highly
effective and safe vaccines have been developed, new waves of disease
are still pushin...g health systems to the breaking point, increasingly
transmissible variants are emerging, some survivors are suffering
serious long-term sequelae, and the International Monetary Fund
estimates that global economic losses could exceed US$5.3 trillion
by 2026, if COVID-19 becomes endemic.
Although over 6 billion doses of COVID-19 vaccine have already been
administered, and global production is now reaching 1.5 billion doses
per month, the world is not positioned to end the pandemic. In areas of
high vaccine coverage, there have been massive reductions in serious
disease, hospitalization and death but, globally, vaccine access is highly
inequitable with coverage ranging from 1% to over 70%, depending
largely on a country’s wealth. Consequently, SARS CoV-2 variants
continue to emerge, causing surges of disease and slowing or even
reversing the reopening of societies and economies.
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In 2015, to advance the global and national response to antimicrobial resistance (AMR), the World Health Assembly issued resolution WHA68.7 calling for all Member States to develop AMR national action plans that address the five objectives of the World Health Organization Global Action Plan (GAP) by... May 2017. The WHO GAP provides a framework to support countries in developing their national action plans on AMR. To operationalize and accelerate implementation of national action plans on AMR, WHO has developed a costing and budgeting tool and accompanying user guide. The purpose is to support countries in costing prioritized activities of an operational plan linked to their AMR national action plan, and identify existing funding and funding gaps to promote resource mobilization and sustainable implementation. The target audience of the publication are national policy makers and designated costing coordinators for national action plans on AMR.
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This implementation brief addresses integration of HIV testing services into family planning (FP) services. It is intended as a practical resource for national health programmes seeking to introduce or scale up HIV testing and linkage to HIV prevention, sexually transmitted infection, and antiretrov...iral therapy services in FP.
This document highlights emerging good practices and country experiences of integrated HIV prevention and testing services within FP and advocates for increased linkage for FP clients to HIV services according to their needs. It also brings together information on models of integration of HIV testing into FP services, programme examples from east and southern Africa and guidance on the implementation monitoring process.
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SARS-CoV-2 infections among children and adolescents cause less severe illness and fewer deaths compared to adults. While a less severe course of infection is a positive outcome, there are concerns that mild symptoms may have led to less testing, resulting in fewer identified cases of COVID-19 in ch...ildren. If children with mild or no symptoms transmit the disease, they may act as drivers of transmission within their communities. Understanding symptoms, infectivity and patterns of SARS-CoV-2 transmission in children and adolescents is essential for developing, adapting and improving control measures for COVID-19 across all ages. This is a summary of the current knowledge around SARS-CoV-2 infection acquisition and transmission and COVID-19 disease symptoms in children and adolescents. It aims to inform decisions, based on local contexts, on how to best keep schools, kindergarten and day-care facilities open and what advice to apply to intergenerational mixing.
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This document aims to support those working in primary care to strengthen IPC, informed by existing WHO IPC guidance and implementation resources. Many of the existing WHO IPC guidance and implementation resources initially developed for acute health care facilities have a potential utility for IPC ...in primary care. However, navigating these resources to locate relevant content for IPC in primary care can be challenging as some documents can span over 100 pages. This document extracts relevant content, bringing together existing WHO IPC standards, indicators and implementation approaches that are focused on, or directly relevant to IPC in primary care. It should also be used to identify resources suitable for use in primary care that can be embedded within relevant IPC or other health programmes.
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More than 700 000 people lose their life to suicide every year. The world is not on track to reach the 2030 suicide reduction targets. WHO advocates for countries to take action to prevent suicide, ideally through a comprehensive national suicide prevention strategy. Governments and communities can ...contribute to suicide prevention by implementing LIVE LIFE – WHO’s approach to starting suicide prevention so that countries can build on it further to develop a comprehensive national suicide prevention strategy. The guide is for all countries, with or without a national suicide prevention strategy; national or local focal points for suicide prevention, mental health, alcohol or NCDs; and community stakeholders with a vested interest or who may already be engaged in implementing suicide prevention activities.
Excecutive Summary available in English, French, Arabic, Chinese, Russian and Spanisch here:
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