Member States have requested WHO policy guidance on how to facilitate the implementation of national AMS activities in an integrated and programmatic approach. This policy guidance responds to that demand from Member States and is anchored in public health guiding principles in the human health sect...or. It provides evidence-based and pragmatic recommendations to drive comprehensive and integrated AMS activities under the purview of a central national coordination unit, National AMR steering or coordinating committees or other equivalent national authorities.
Please note that this course is part of a training package, so please register for the complementary course Antimicrobial stewardship programmes in health-care facilities in low- and middle-income countries: a WHO practical toolkit so that you can complete your learning journey.
more
PEN-Plus is an integrated care delivery strategy focused on alleviating the noncommunicable disease (NCD) burden among the poorest children and young adults by increasing the accessibility and quality of chronic care services for severe NCDs – such as type 1 diabetes (T1D), rheumatic heart disease... (RHD) and sickle cell disease – in the rural areas of low- and lower-middle-income countries (LLMICs) where more than 90 percent of the world’s poorest people live.
more
PEN-Plus is an integrated care delivery strategy focused on alleviating the noncommunicable disease (NCD) burden among the poorest children and young adults by increasing the accessibility and quality of chronic care services for severe NCDs—such as type 1 diabetes, rheumatic heart disease, and si...ckle cell disease—in the rural areas of low- and lower-middle-income countries, where more than 90 percent of the world’s poorest people live.
more
Noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) – chief among them, cardiovascular diseases (heart disease and stroke), cancer, diabetes and chronic respiratory diseases – cause nearly three-quarters of deaths in the world. Their drivers are social, environmental, commercial and genetic, and their presence is g...lobal. Every year 17 million people under the age of 70 die of NCDs, and 86% of them live in low- and middle-income countries.
Users can explore the data below by country, accessing detailed information on noncommunicable diseases and their key risk factors
more
Responding to Outbreaks of Antimicrobial-resistant Pathogens in Health-care Facilities: Guidance for the Western Pacific Region is developed following requests from Member States in the Western Pacific Region for additional information and support in managing AMR outbreaks. It aims to provide: a ste...p-by-step guide for health-care facilities to respond to AMR outbreaks; a practical resource for health-care workers to support AMR outbreak response in low- and middle-income countries; and practical guidance to implement effective AMR outbreak response policies and procedures in clinical settings.
more
The world faces grave consequences from the lack of available mental health services and treatment. Mental illness impacts every country, culture and community, with the World Health Organization (WHO) stating that 10% of the global burden of disease is related to mental, neurological and substance ...use disorders. In low-and middle-income countries, more than 75% of people with mental disorders receive no treatment at all for their disorder. During 2020, as a result of the global pandemic, 93% of countries reported their mental health services were either halted or interrupted (WHO, 2020e). WHO reported a 25% increase in depression and anxiety alone during the pandemic. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development estimates depression and anxiety cost the global economy US $1 trillion dollars a year. All nurses have a health care role in mental health and substance use. ICN strongly advocates for the investment of further education and professional development in this area in order to support individuals and communities achieve the highest attainable standard of health which includes
physical, mental and social wellbeing.
more
The results of the report clearly show that in 2020, a year dominated by the emergence of COVID-19 and its associated health and economic crises, governments around the world rose to the challenge. Sharp increases in government spending on health at all country income levels underpinned the rise in ...health spending to a new high of US $9 trillion (approximately 11% of global GDP). Government health spending generally increased and offset declines in out-of-pocket spending. Importantly, the rise in government health spending was part of a much broader fiscal response to the pandemic. In high income and upper-middle income countries social protection spending also increased sharply in as governments attempted to cushion populations from the economic impacts of COVID-19. In contrast to health and social protection, growth in education spending was relatively subdued. Countries face the further challenge of sustaining increased public spending on health and other social sectors in the face of deteriorating macroeconomic conditions and rising debt servicing. This also includes the challenge of sustaining external support for low income countries, which is essential for reducing ensuring poverty, ensuring access to health services and strengthening pandemic preparedness.
more
As climate change increasingly contributes to migration and displacement in many parts of the world, there is a pressing need for measures that build resilience and prevent displacement as well as those that help climate-affected people move to safety and support receiving communities. Multilateral ...development banks (MDBs) are critical, if sometimes overlooked, players because of their ability to invest in large-scale projects that contribute to sustainable development, primarily in low- and middle-income countries.
This report explores the unique role of MDBs in the climate finance landscape and highlights opportunities for migration, humanitarian, and other key actors to partner with them on projects that effectively target climate-related migration and displacement. After reviewing the evidence on the complex linkages between climate and mobility, the report examines MDBs’ climate-related work to date, challenges they face to scaling up these efforts, and strategies to begin to address hurdles. These recommendations include learning from past MDB investments that have touched on climate migration, funding data collection or sharing to strengthen understanding of climate migration trends, and developing partnerships to support policy and project development, financing, and implementation.
more
The WHO estimates that 19 million children aged 15 years or younger are visually impaired. Of these, 1.4 million are irreversibly blind and need visual rehabilitation interventions for full psychological and personal development. The remainder have visual problems that could be prevented or treated.... Identifying children with visual problems early in life so that they can benefit from medical and optical interventions remains a key challenge for most child eye health programmes. Reports from various low-and middle-income countries indicate that the age of children undergoing operation for cataract is frequently too high to achieve maximum benefit.
more
As of 12 December 2022, over 645 million people worldwide have been diagnosed with COVID-19, with over 6.6 million deaths (4).
The Omicron variant, which emerged in late November 2021, and its subvariants, are now the dominant circulating viruses, contributing to the ongoing surge in several countr...ies (4). Vaccination has substantially reduced case numbers and hospitalizations in many countries,but limitations in global access to vaccines mean that many populations, including those in low- and middle-income countries, remain vulnerable. Even in vaccinated individuals, uncertainties remain about duration of protection and efficacy, and the degree of crossprotection with new variants.
There remains a need for more effective treatment and management for those affected by COVID-19. The pandemic – and the
explosion of both research and misinformation – has highlighted the need for trustworthy, accessible and regularly updated living
guidelines to place emerging findings into context and provide clear recommendations for clinical practice
more
Cervical cancer is the fourth most common cancer in women worldwide in 2018, with 570,000 new cases and 311,000 deaths occurring annually.T he highest incidence rates are in Southern Africa, Eastern Africa, SubSaharan Africa, Western Africa, Melanesia, and Middle Africa . It also ranks as the leadin...g cause of cancer-related death in most African countries. More than 85% of these deaths occur in low- and middle-income countries . In addition, women living with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) are six times as likely to have cervical cancer
more
Background: Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 3 aims to “ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages”. While a substantial effort has been made to quantify progress towards SDG3, less research has focused on tracking spending towards this goal. We used spending estimates to ...measure progress in financing the priority areas of SDG3, examine the association between outcomes and financing, and identify where resource gains are most needed to achieve the SDG3 indicators for which data are available. Methods: We estimated domestic health spending, disaggregated by source (government, out-of-pocket, and prepaid private) from 1995 to 2017 for 195 countries and territories. For disease-specific health spending, we estimated spending for HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis for 135 low-income and middle-income countries, and malaria in 106 malaria-endemic countries, from 2000 to 2017. We also estimated development assistance for health (DAH) from 1990 to 2019, by source, disbursing development agency, recipient, and health focus area, including DAH for pandemic preparedness. Finally, we estimated future health spending for 195 countries and territories from 2018 until 2030. We report all spending estimates in inflation-adjusted 2019 US$, unless otherwise stated.
more
Past quantitative research on health financing has focused mostly on the level and distribution of total expenditure, with little emphasis on the specific role of public funds, despite their known importance for universal health coverage (UHC). Health Accounts data do not disaggregate public expendi...ture on health by source of funding. Achieving a better understanding of public financing for health in the context of the macro-fiscal and health financing environment is of fundamental importance to the development of future health financing policy, particularly in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs).
more
In October 2022, President Biden signed the Global Malnutrition Prevention and Treatment Act (GMPTA) into law, which directs USAID to prevent and treat malnutrition globally. The GMPTA further codifies USAID’s leadership on nutrition, with a focus on evidence-based interventions across health syst...ems and food systems, in both development and humanitarian settings.
Realizing the potential of good nutrition to save lives and ensure a brighter future for generations to come is central to U.S. Government priorities. For over 60 years, USAID has been a leader in the fight to end global malnutrition. Nutrition affects every aspect of human development: from the ability to fight disease, to children’s performance in school, to a nation’s health and economic advancement. There is overwhelming evidence of the power of good nutrition but, due to challenges in accessing safe, nutritious foods and health and sanitation services, many people in low- and middle-income countries remain undernourished.
more
Access to safe blood and blood products is recognized as one of the key requirements for delivery of modern health care in the journey towards health for all. The foundation of safe and sustainable blood supplies depends on the collection of blood from voluntary non-remunerated and low-risk donors. ...Data from the WHO Global Database for Blood Safety (GDBS) brings out several inadequacies related to the supply and safety of blood and blood products. These inadequacies include a number of variations in safe blood practices across the world, including the quantity of blood donated (voluntary and replacement types), quality and adequate testing of the donated blood (immunohaematology [IH] and transfusion-transmitted infections [TTIs]), rational use of blood and blood components such as appropriate patient blood management protocols. These variations are very high in countries of the South-East Asian Region and most of them are either low- or middle-income countries (LMICs).
more
This ACTIVE toolkit provides evidence-based guidance on the key approaches to promote and enable older people to be physically active, regardless of who they are, where they live, or their intrinsic capacities (for example their visual or cognitive abilities) or whether they live with chronic condit...ions (for example, diabetes, hypertension, and arthritis). It is designed to support all countries at national and subnational levels (particularly low- and middle-income countries with limited resources) to ensure that environments and settings support older people to be active, and that they provide physical activity services and programmes tailored to the needs, preferences and goals of all older people.
more
Pregnancy and childbirth during adolescence profoundly affects the lives of millions of girls worldwide, and is a leading cause of maternal mortality and morbidity, and infant and child mortality. Every year, an estimated 21 million girls aged 15–19 years old in low- and middle-income countries be...come pregnant, and approximately 12 million give birth.
For many adolescent girls, the ability to control their sexual lives remains limited. Long-standing gender inequalities and discrimination, marginalization, harmful social and gender norms, and denial of rights, compounded by poverty and violence, render them vulnerable to early pregnancy, HIV and other health threats. Lack of age-appropriate sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) information and services create additional barriers to care and support; as a result, adolescent girls who become pregnant are much more likely to go on to have rapid repeated births.
more
The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted gaps in health surveillance systems, disease prevention, and treatment globally. Among the many factors that might have led to these gaps is the issue of the financing of national health systems, especially in low-income and middle-income countries (LMICs), as well ...as a robust global system for pandemic preparedness.
more