27 May 2021
All countries should increase their level of preparedness, alert and response to identify, manage and care for new cases of COVID-19. Countries should prepare to respond to different public health scenarios, recognizing that there is no one-size-fits-all approach to managing cases and o...utbreaks of COVID-19. Each country should assess its risk and rapidly implement the necessary measures at the appropriate scale to reduce both COVID-19 transmission and economic, public and social impacts.
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The purposes of this template are to support PAHO Country Offices and national/subnational emergency management mechanisms to develop or update their risk communication and community engagement (RCCE) plans related to COVID-19. The COVID-19 pandemic is a rapidly evolving situation and takes on diffe...rent patterns in countries and communities. It is therefore imperative that RCCE plans are adapted to the local context, reviewed frequently, and updated as needed.
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This brief provides a snapshot of child protection interventions by UNHCR and its partners during the pandemic, covering community engagement, case management, alternative care and capacity building. In addition to working with children and communities, UNHCR also engages with authorities through po...licy advocacy in the context of COVID-19, such as to end immigration detention of children.
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As the crisis in Syria moves into its second decade, a survey commissioned by the International Committee of the Red Cross highlights the heavy price paid by young Syrians.
1,400 Syrians between the ages of 18-25 were surveyed in Syria, Lebanon and Germany. Across the three countries, young peopl...e spoke of families and friendships torn apart, immense economic hardship and worry, frustrated ambitions, missed milestones and the profound psychological toll of years of relentless violence and disruption.
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Here you can download the latest Situation Reports
Weekly updates on the current situation in Ukraine and refugee-receiving countries, priority public health concerns and WHO’s actions to rapidly respond to the health emergency triggered by the conflict and to minimize disruptions to the delivery... of critical health services.
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A One Health Response. A Briefing Note
BACKGROUND: Growing political attention to antimicrobial resistance (AMR) offers a rare opportunity for achieving meaningful action. Many governments have developed national AMR action plans, but most have not yet implemented policy interventions to reduce antimicrobial overuse. A systematic evidenc...e map can support governments in making evidence-informed decisions about implementing programs to reduce AMR, by identifying, describing, and assessing the full range of evaluated government policy options to reduce antimicrobial use in humans.
METHODS AND FINDINGS: Seven databases were searched from inception to January 28, 2019, (MEDLINE, CINAHL, EMBASE, PAIS Index, Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, Web of Science, and PubMed). We identified studies that (1) clearly described a government policy intervention aimed at reducing human antimicrobial use, and (2) applied a quantitative design to measure the impact. We found 69 unique evaluations of government policy interventions carried out across 4 of the 6 WHO regions. These evaluations included randomized controlled trials (n = 4), non-randomized controlled trials (n = 3), controlled before-and-after designs (n = 7), interrupted time series designs (n = 25), uncontrolled before-and-after designs (n = 18), descriptive designs (n = 10), and cohort designs (n = 2). From these we identified 17 unique policy options for governments to reduce the human use of antimicrobials. Many studies evaluated public awareness campaigns (n = 17) and antimicrobial guidelines (n = 13); however, others offered different policy options such as professional regulation, restricted reimbursement, pay for performance, and prescription requirements. Identifying these policies can inform the development of future policies and evaluations in different contexts and health systems. Limitations of our study include the possible omission of unpublished initiatives, and that policies not evaluated with respect to antimicrobial use have not been captured in this review.
CONCLUSIONS: To our knowledge this is the first study to provide policy makers with synthesized evidence on specific government policy interventions addressing AMR. In the future, governments should ensure that AMR policy interventions are evaluated using rigorous study designs and that study results are published.
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News Release 11 april 2022
Given that the emergency has exceeded the worst-case scenario, this revised supplementary appeal for the Ukraine situation outlines UNHCR’s additional requirements of $1.246 billion for March to December 2022.
The World Health Organization (WHO) recognizes the challenges countries face for maintaining their COVID-19 response while addressing competing public health challenges, conflicts, climate change and economic crises. WHO continues to support countries in adjusting COVID-19 strategies to reflect succ...esses to date and leverage what has been learned through national responses.
To assist national and global efforts to end the COVID-19 emergency worldwide, WHO updated the COVID-19 (Global Preparedness, Readiness and Response plan) in 2022 and outlined two strategic objectives.
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The World Health Organization (WHO) recognizes the challenges countries face for maintaining their COVID-19 response while addressing competing public health challenges, conflicts, climate change and economic crises.
It remains critical for national programmes to continue to offer testing for COVI...D-19 in line with three main objectives: reduce morbidity and mortality through linkage to prompt care and treatment, reduce onward transmission and track the evolution of the epidemic and the virus
itself.
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UNICEF Syria’s series of think pieces. Every day counts. An outlook on child protection for the most vulnerable children in Syria.To navigate the complex and continuously changing context and attain sustainable results for children, UNICEF – along with other UN agencies - seeks to make a shift i...n its programming towards early recovery while maintaining the delivery of humanitarian assistance based on needs on the ground. This will help strengthen the linkages between the needs-based emergency response and essential service restoration, socioeconomic resilience, and social cohesion.
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The world has been turned on its head by the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. This has provided a stark wakeup call on the severe under-financing of health systems around the world. It has laid bare the inequalities and limitations in the capacities of countries at all levels of develop...ment to prevent major health crises or respond to them. But it doesn’t have to be this way.
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This publication provides an overview of UN Women’s commitments to the humanitarian community guided by the “UN Women strategic plan 2022–2025”. It highlights areas where UN Women has a unique advantage in advancing gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls across the humanitari...an–development–peace nexus, and in contributing to the Inter-Agency Standing Committee priorities, including localization and accountability to affected people.
The strategy adopts a two-pronged approach:
strengthening accountability towards gender commitments in coordination and implementation of UN-led humanitarian and refugee responses, and
strengthening comprehensive protection and livelihoods support to crisis-affected women and girls.
While taking these approaches, UN Women prioritizes amplifying women’s voices, leadership, and agency as a critical and enabling cross-cutting area.
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Previous advocacy efforts have achieved tangible goals in terms garnering political commitments
to increase financing for TB—as seen at the 2018 UN High-Level Meeting on TB. The challenge
now is to ensure that these commitments are actually met within a global biomedical research
ecosystem that... is designed and incentivized to prioritize the health needs of wealthy populations
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Since fighting between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) erupted in mid-April, an estimated 6.3 million people have fled their homes, taking refuge inside and outside the country, with children representing about half of the people displaced. Sudan is now the country... with the largest number of displaced people in the world as prior to the fighting there were 3.7 million people internally displaced in Sudan. It is also now the country with the largest child displacement crisis in the world. ACLED estimates that more than 10,400 people have been killed since the fighting broke out in April, of which about 1,300 killings happened between 30 September and 27 October.
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The Global Appeal provides updated information for government, private donors, partners and other readers interested in UNHCR's priorities and budgeted activities for 2021 to protect and improve the lives of tens of millions of people of concern (refugees, internally displaced people, stateless pers...ons and others)
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