. Interim Guidelines. This interim guideline lays out some basic principles of optimal nutritional care for adults and paediatric patients during treatment and convalescence in Ebola treatment units, community care centres or to other centres where Ebola patients are receiving care and support. It h...ighlights the key clinical problems in patients affected by Ebola virus disease (EVD) that may interfere with their nutritional status and overall clinical support in the context of the current Ebola crisis, and summarizes their nutritional needs. It does not provide specific advice on fluid management in cases of vomiting, diarrhoea and dehydration or parenteral nutrition
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The WHO Toolkit for the care and support of people affected by complications associated with Zika virus has been developed to serve as a model guide, with the goal of enhancing country preparedness for Zika virus outbreaks. The toolkit is intended to provide a systems approach involving public heal...th planners and managers so that the necessary infrastructure and resources can be identified and incorporated as needed, as well as technical and practical guidance for health care professionals and community workers.
The toolkit includes three manuals to provide countries with tools to effectively recognize people affected by Zika virus and deliver comprehensive care and support:
Manual for public health planners and managers
Manual for health care professionals
Manual for community workers
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Self-care interventions are among the most promising and exciting new approaches to improve health and well-being, both from a health systems perspective and for people who use these interventions. The World Health Organization (WHO) uses the following working definition of self-care: Self-care is t...he ability of individuals, families and communities to promote health, prevent disease, maintain health, and cope with illness and disability with or without the support of a health- care provider
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In 2017, 3.6 million of the estimated 10 million people with TB worldwide were “missed” by national TB programmes (NTPs). Two thirds of them are thought to access TB treatment of questionable quality from public and private providers who are not engaged by the NTP. The quality of care provided i...n these settings is often not known or substandard. Closing these gaps and ensuring patient-centred care imply that quality-assured and affordable TB services must be made available wherever people choose to seek care.
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Vision Statement
From birth to 8 years of age, all children of the Republic of the Union of Myanmar will receive holistic, high-quality and developmentally-appropriate care from their parents, caregivers and service providers to ensure they will be happy, healthy, well nourished, socially adept..., emotionally balanced and well protected in conditions of freedom, equity and dignity in order to contribute positively to their families, communities and the nation.
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The guidelines address timing, number and place of postnatal contacts, and content of postnatal care for all mothers and babies during the six weeks after birth. The primary audience for these guidelines is health professionals who are responsible for providing postnatal care to women and newborns, ...primarily in areas where resources are limited. The guidelines are also expected to be used by policy-makers and managers of maternal and child health programmes, health facilities, and teaching institutions to set up and maintain maternity and newborn care services.
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First published in 2020, this toolkit is intended for clinicians working in acute care, managing adult and paediatric patients with acute respiratory infection, including severe pneumonia, acute respiratory distress syndrome, sepsis and septic shock. The main objective is to provide key tools for us...e in the care of critically ill patients – from hospital entry to hospital discharge.
The 2022 updated version includes new tools and adapted algorithms, checklists, memory aids for COVID-19 and influenza, and the latest clinical evidence regarding clinical management of SARI. It is intended to help clinicians care for SARI patients: from epidemiology of severe acute respiratory infections, screening and triage, infection prevention and control, monitoring of patients, laboratory diagnosis, principles of oxygen therapy and different types of ventilation (invasive and non-invasive), as well as antimicrobial and immunomodulator therapies, to ethical and quality of care assessments.
The first edition is availbel in Ukrainian and Russian
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Policy brief, 24 July 2020
The COVID-19 pandemic has affected older people disproportionately, especially those living in long-term care facilities. In many countries, evidence shows that more than 40% of COVID-19 related deaths have been linked to long-term care facilities, with figures being as h...igh as 80% in some high-income countries. Concerted action is needed to mitigate the impact across all aspects of long-term care, including home- and community-based care, given that most users and providers of care are those who are vulnerable to severe COVID-19.
This policy brief provides 11 policy objectives and key action points to prevent and manage COVID-19 across long-term care. Its intended audience is policy makers and authorities (national, subnational and local) involved in the COVID-19 pandemic. The brief builds on currently available evidence on the measures taken to prevent, prepare for and respond to the COVID‑19 pandemic across long-term care services including care providers
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The availability of water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) services in health care facilities, especially in maternity and primary-care settings where they are often absent, supports core aspects of quality, equity and dignity for all people. This document describes an approach for conducting a nation...al situational analysis of water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) as a basis for improving quality of care. This document describes the process from the initial preparatory stages, including triggers for action, through data collection and analysis to the dissemination of results. Each element of the approach is described and possible limitations and mechanisms to mitigate these are explored.
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Tuberculosis (TB) is, and should be, a curable disease; however, each year significant numbers of patients acquire or develop drug-resistant TB, which has a much lower cure rate. Patients with drug-resistant TB have a high prevalence of symptoms; hence, staff caring for these patients should h...ave some familiarity with palliative care, so that general palliative care principles are available to all patients. The timely identification, and addressing, of adverse events occurring during the treatment course is considered as general palliative care for those receiving curative treatment. This publication summarizes the general palliative care approach, which is recommended for use in settings and services that occasionally treat palliative care patients, but do not provide palliative care as the main focus of their work. The review focuses on 18 high TB priority countries of the WHO European Region.
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Wound care is a regular component of the package of care we offer in the majority of our health care facilities and represents a high volume of activities. The current practices in MSF projects are often based on the habits of each individual supervisor, the wound care material we off...er is partly outdated and does not allow optimal wound care. There is a need for standardization of wound care and it needs to be evidence based as much as possible, taking into account the realities of the field.
The scope of this document is to guide the caregiver in the wound care process. It does not intend to provide in depth information on wound healing or physiology. There is a wide range of literature and background information available for this purpose in the references and in the list of extra reading
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The standards for the care of small and sick newborns in health facilities define, standardize and mainstream inpatient care of small and sick newborns, building on essential newborn care and ensuring consistency with the WHO quality of care framework. The standards will guide countries in caring fo...r this vulnerable population and support the quality of care of newborns in the context of universal health coverage. They will provide a resource for policy-makers, health care professionals, health service planners, programme managers, regulators, professional bodies and technical partners involved in care
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The EAPC White Paper addresses the issue of spiritual care education for all palliative care
professionals. It is to guide health care professionals involved in teaching or training of palliative care and spiritual care; stakeholders, leaders and decision makers responsible for training and educati...on; as well as national and local curricula development groups.
The EAPC white paper points out the importance of spiritual care as an integral part of palliative care and suggests incorporating it accordingly into educational activities and training models in palliative care. The revised spiritual care education competencies for all palliative care providers are accompanied by the best practice models and research evidence, at the same time being sensitive towards different develop-ment stages of the palliative care services across the European region.
Conclusions: Better education can help the healthcare practitioner to avoid being distracted by their own fears, prejudices, and restraints and attend to the patient and his/her family. This EAPC white paper encourages and facilitates high quality, multi-disciplinary, academically and financially accessible spiritual care education to all
palliative care staff.
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The world is facing an unprecedented range of emergencies. In reaction to these complex adversities, many people experience considerable distress and impairment, and a minority may even go on to develop mental health conditions. Meanwhile, those with pre-existing mental health conditions may experie...nce a worsening of their condition and are at risk of neglect, abandonment, abuse and lack of access to support. Unfortunately, evidence-based mental health care is often extremely limited in humanitarian settings. In response, the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) published the Mental Health Gap Action Programme (mhGAP) Humanitarian Intervention Guide (mhGAP-HIG) in 2015. This practical tool supports health-care providers in assessing and offering first-line management of mental, neurological and substance use (MNS) conditions in humanitarian emergency settings.
2 December 2021. The current report, Stories of change from four countries: Building capacity for integrating mental health care within health services across humanitarian settings, describes efforts in four countries to build evidence-based mental health systems in humanitarian emergency settings using the mhGAP-HIG. This report includes three sections, the first describing the importance of scaling up mental health care in emergency contexts, the second outlining case studies (“stories of change”) to scale up the Mental Health Gap Action Programme (mhGAP) programme in four settings and the third describing lessons learned by stakeholders.
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Key questions
What is already known?
Critical illness is common throughout the world and COVID-19 has caused a global surge of critically ill patients.
There are large gaps in the quality of care for critically ill patients, especially in low-staffed and low-resourced settings, and mortal...ity rates are high.
Essential Emergency and Critical Care (EECC) is the effective lifesaving care of low-cost and low-complexity that all critically ill patients should receive in all wards in all hospitals in the world.
What are the new findings?
The clinical processes that comprise EECC and the essential care of critically ill patients with COVID-19 have been specified in a large consensus among clinical experts worldwide.
The resource requirements for hospitals to be ready to provide this care has been described.
What do the new findings imply?
The findings can be used across medical specialties in hospitals worldwide to prioritise and implement essential care for reducing preventable deaths.
Inclusion of the EEEC processes could increase the impact of pandemic preparedness and response programmes and policies for health systems strengthening.
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The target audience for this training course is non-clinicians such as Home Based Carers, Community Caregivers, Youth Care Workers, Peer educators, Community Health Workers etc. primarily those who will be providing adherence counselling to clients with HIV, TB, Hypertension and Diabetes. This group... of non-clinicians play a vital role in helping to reduce the workload of nursing staff. Amongst others, non- clinicians educate clients and provide emotional support in a manner that makes each client feel like they are receiving focused, individual attention. Non-clinicians are often in close contact with communities and, therefore, able to understand and play a role in alleviating health service barriers in the community.
Facility managers may also be part of the target audience in order to ensure that they understand the components of the minimum package of interventions to support linkage, adherence and retention in care.
Further, their attendance seeks to ensure that non-clinicians receive necessary assistance and support when they have to implement what they have learned back into their workplaces.
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The KMC implementation strategy targets a broad audience. These include policy-makers and programme managers at national, regional and local levels, government and nongovernmental organizations working in the area of maternal and newborn care, global and national professional associations, public an...d private hospital management at all levels of care, and facility- and community-based maternal and infant care providers.
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Unpreparedness of health professionals to address non-communicable diseases (NCD) at peripheral health facilities is a critical health system challenge in Mozambique. To address this weakness and decentralize NCD care, training of the primary care workforce is needed. We describe our experience in t...he design and implementation of a cascade training of trainers (ToT) intervention to strengthen the prevention and control of cardiovascular disease.
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Hepatitis B (HBV) infection is a major public health problem and cause of chronic liver disease.
The 2024 HBV guidelines provide updated evidence-informed recommendations on key priority topics. These include expanded and simplified treatment criteria for adults but now also for adolescents; expa...nded eligibility for antiviral prophylaxis for pregnant women to prevent mother-to-child transmission of HBV; improving HBV diagnostics through use of point-of-care HBV DNA viral load and reflex approaches to HBV DNA testing; who to test and how to test for HDV infection; and approaches to promote delivery of high-quality HBV services, including strategies to promote adherence to long-term antiviral therapy and retention in care.
The 2024 guidelines include 11 updated chapters with new recommendations and also update existing chapters without new recommendations, such as those on treatment monitoring and surveillance for liver cancer.
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The "Primary Healthcare Standard Treatment Guidelines and Essential Medicines List" by the South African National Department of Health provides evidence-based guidelines for diagnosing and managing common medical conditions at the primary healthcare level. This document includes treatment protocols ...for various health issues, such as infections, chronic diseases, maternal and child health, mental health, and emergency care. It aims to standardize care, promote rational medicine use, and ensure equitable access to essential medications across South Africa. The guidelines emphasize prevention, accurate diagnosis, and efficient treatment strategies to improve patient outcomes.
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