Interim guidance. 12 May 2021. The Continuity of essential health services: Facility Assessment Tool can be used by countries to rapidly assess the capacity of health facilities to maintain the provision of essential health services during the COVID-19 pandemic. It can help to alert the authorities ...and other stakeholders about where service delivery and utilization may require modification and/or investment. This assessment tool covers the following aspects of essential health services:
health workforce (numbers, absences, COVID-19 infections, health workforce management, training and support);
financial management and barriers;
service delivery and utilization (facility closures, changes in service delivery, community communication campaigns, changes in service utilization and catch-up strategies);
IPC capacities (protocols, safety measures, guidelines and the availability of personal protective equipment (PPE) for staff);
availability of therapeutics, diagnostics and supplies, and vaccine readiness; and
provision of COVID-19 primary care services.
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This global guidance provided the framework for over 100 countries to develop their NDVPs. This updated (second) version supersedes the previous version published in 16 November 2020. New information has been added on the following areas:
the COVID-19 Partners Platform;
the use of COVID...-19 simulation exercises to test deployment strategies;
the indemnity agreement and no-fault compensation programme for vaccines secured through the COVAX Facility in the Advance Market Commitment (AMC) eligible economies;
the availability and use of the WHO-UNICEF COVID-19 Vaccine Introduction and deployment Costing (CVIC) tool;
the COVAX Facility’s humanitarian buffer that enables allocation of vaccine to cover high-risk populations in humanitarian settings;
recommendations for vaccination of pregnant and lactating women;
supplementary information on infection prevention and control (IPC) measures to be used to deliver COVID-19 vaccines safely;
the WHO licensed COVID-19 vaccines product-specific information;
use of geospatial data and digital micro plans for equitable access and delivery of COVID-19 vaccines;
lessons learned from the development of NDVPs and early experiences in COVID-19 vaccine deployment in countries; and
updated additional resources at the end of each chapter.
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The Tripartite AMR Country Self-Assessment Survey (TrACSS) helps to monitor country progress on the implementation of AMR national actions plans and has been administered on an annual basis by the Tripartite organizations (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), World Organisa...tion for Animal Health (OIE) and World Health Organization (WHO)) since 2016.
This report analyzes the global responses on the fourth round of TrACSS (2019-2020) and examines the global trends and actions towards addressing AMR in all sectors.
Complete country and global responses to all rounds of the survey can be accessed through the TrACSS database: https://amrcountryprogress.org/.
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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 aims to provide a set of 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.
Available in English, French, Spanish, Russian, Arabic, Chinese
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Mit dem One Health Ansatz für gesunde Menschen, gesunde Tiere und eine gesunde Umwelt weltweit. Briefing paper.
Der One Health Ansatz nimmt das Zusammenspiel der Gesundheit von Mensch, Tier und Umwelt in
den Blick. Der Ansatz betont den Mehrwert einer trans-, multi- und interdisziplinären Zusamm...enarbeit zu den verschiedenen Themenbereichen. Ein multi-dimensionaler One Health Ansatz hat in den letzten Jahren zunehmend an Bedeutung gewonnen und wird nun von verschiedenen Akteuren als Ansatz zur Prävention und Reaktion auf zukünftige Pandemien gesehen
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Nat Med (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41591-021-01381-y
A new brief published by the IFRC and Climate Centre today details the adverse impacts of climate change on human health and provides more detail on the second of four pillars of action in the Red Cross Red Crescent Movement ambitions on climate.
Background paper 9
The Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response
May 2021
Annals of Global Health, 87(1), p.43. DOI: http://doi.org/10.5334/aogh.3269;
The aim of this study was to examine the prevalence of mental health symptoms (anxiety, depression, and stress) in Bangladesh and the factors associated with these symptoms during the COVID-19 pandemic.
They found that ...about 64%, 87%, and 61% of the respondents in Bangladesh reported high levels of depression, anxiety, and stress, respectively and this varied between divisions (regions), more in women, those who self-quarantined, and those that experienced classical symptoms of COVID-19. We think there is a need for mental health support in this population to minimise the long term effects.
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In 2019, an estimated 10 million individuals fell ill with tuberculosis (TB) and 3 million of them were not reported to have beendiagnosed and notified. The gap is proportionately even wider for drug-resistant TB. Of the estimated 465 000 patients with rifampicin-resistant and multi-drug resistant T...B (RR/MDR-TB), only 206 030 (44%) were diagnosed and notified.For the first time, the World Health Organization (WHO) has provided global estimates of the incidence of isoniazid resistance: in 2019, there were 1.4 million incident cases of isoniazid-resistant TB, of which 1.1 million were susceptible to rifampicin. Most of these people were not diagnosed with drug-resistant TB and did not receive appropriate treatment.
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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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Today, WFP has the capabilities and know-how to tap into mobile technology and artificial intelligence to monitor food security; use satellite technology to locate and track communities in need; and offer digital finance via blockchain technology to put consumer choices in the hands of our beneficia...ries.
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FAO and WHO jointly developed a comprehensive tool to assist Member states in assessing the effectiveness of national food control system. The FAO/WHO Food Control System Assessment Tool comprises 162 assessment criteria under 25 system competencies over 4 Dimensions. This introductory booklet is de...veloped to facilitate application of the assessment tool.
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In 2013 the World Health Organization (WHO) published the report Protecting health from climate change:vulnerability and adaptation assessment. The aim was to provide basic and flexible guidance on conducting national or subnational assessments of current and future vulnerability (the susceptibilit...y of a population or region to harm) to the health risks of climate change, and of policies and programmes that could increase resilience, taking into account the multiple determinants of climate-sensitive health outcomes.
That guidance has been a very useful tool, applied to more than 50 countries and settings, and has helped countries to prepare their health contributions to United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change national adaptation plans.
Since the launch of the guidance, WHO, technical partners such as Health Canada, and countries have learned much in terms of its applicability in different countries, at national and local levels.
At the same time, knowledge on climate change and health has increased.
WHO, the Pan American Health Organization and Health Canada have produced this updated version, which aims to better support countries in their assessments by proposing a simpler tool that incorporates
all lessons learned.
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Annals of Global Health, 87(1), p.30. DOI: http://doi.org/10.5334/aogh.2647
The health and socioeconomic crisis triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic has hit the countries of Latin America hard and laid bare the profound inequities about which numerous international, regional and national reports have sounded warnings in recent decades. In this context, the historical politica...l and economic exclusion and marginalization of the more than 800 indigenous peoples in the region has been accentuated as a result of insufficient State responses to the crisis, which have not adequately considered the collective rights of these peoples and have had little cultural relevance.
This document provides an overview of the situation of indigenous peoples in the region in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic. It analyses both the State’s and indigenous peoples’ own responses to the crisis, as well as offering a set of recommendations to rectify the neglect of these peoples in the management of the pandemic, centring on their collective rights.
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Emergencias 2021: 33: 42-58