The availability of controlled medicines is crucial for patients requiring palliative care, pain relief and symptom management. Many individuals worldwide, especially in low- and middle-income countries, continue to experience limited access to these essential medicines. Enhancing access to controll...ed medicines is paramount in promoting universal health coverage. This report offers a detailed situational analysis of policies and programmes aimed at improving access to affordable, high-quality controlled medicines for pain management in the WHO South-East Asia Region. The report identifies the existing barriers, challenges and possible solutions to facilitate access to such medicines across all Member States.
more
The content of these guidelines goes beyond the technicalities of medical needs with additional insights into community empowerment, possible access to welfare and economic opportunities and similar issues. If these are adequately explored, the health and quality of life of people affected and their... families would be greatly restored.
more
The Abuja declaration identifies that the prevention and control of HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and related infectious diseases must come with additional financial resources. Therefore, African governments agreed on setting the target of allocating at least 15 per cent of each country’s annual budget ...to the improvement of the health sector. Moreover, the declaration demands donor countries to assist by fulfilling the target of delivering official development assistance (ODA) in the amount of 0.7 per cent of gross national product (GNP).
more
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.
more
The Mapping Antimicrobial Resistance and Antimicrobial Use Partnership (MAAP) project has conducted a multi-year, multi-country study that provides stark insights on the under-reported depth of the antimicrobial resistance (AMR) crisis across Africa and lays out urgent policy recommendations to addr...ess the emergency.
MAAP reviewed 819,584 AMR records from 2016-2019, from 205 laboratories across Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Eswatini, Gabon, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. MAAP also reviewed data from 327 hospital and community pharmacies and 16 national-level AMC datasets.
more
The Mapping Antimicrobial Resistance and Antimicrobial Use Partnership (MAAP) project has conducted a multi-year, multi-country study that provides stark insights on the under-reported depth of the antimicrobial resistance (AMR) crisis across Africa and lays out urgent policy recommendations to addr...ess the emergency.
MAAP reviewed 819,584 AMR records from 2016-2019, from 205 laboratories across Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Eswatini, Gabon, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. MAAP also reviewed data from 327 hospital and community pharmacies and 16 national-level AMC datasets.
more
The Mapping Antimicrobial Resistance and Antimicrobial Use Partnership (MAAP) project has conducted a multi-year, multi-country study that provides stark insights on the under-reported depth of the antimicrobial resistance (AMR) crisis across Africa and lays out urgent policy recommendations to addr...ess the emergency.
MAAP reviewed 819,584 AMR records from 2016-2019, from 205 laboratories across Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Eswatini, Gabon, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. MAAP also reviewed data from 327 hospital and community pharmacies and 16 national-level AMC datasets.
more
The Mapping Antimicrobial Resistance and Antimicrobial Use Partnership (MAAP) project has conducted a multi-year, multi-country study that provides stark insights on the under-reported depth of the antimicrobial resistance (AMR) crisis across Africa and lays out urgent policy recommendations to addr...ess the emergency.
MAAP reviewed 819,584 AMR records from 2016-2019, from 205 laboratories across Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Eswatini, Gabon, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. MAAP also reviewed data from 327 hospital and community pharmacies and 16 national-level AMC datasets.
more
The Mapping Antimicrobial Resistance and Antimicrobial Use Partnership (MAAP) project has conducted a multi-year, multi-country study that provides stark insights on the under-reported depth of the antimicrobial resistance (AMR) crisis across Africa and lays out urgent policy recommendations to addr...ess the emergency.
MAAP reviewed 819,584 AMR records from 2016-2019, from 205 laboratories across Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Eswatini, Gabon, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. MAAP also reviewed data from 327 hospital and community pharmacies and 16 national-level AMC datasets.
more
Japan has been implementing projects of global extension of medical technologies under an official development assistance policy to improve public health and medicine by promoting Japanese medical technologies worldwide. The current work examines the impact and goals of implementing this new scheme.... The scheme has involved dozens of projects that sent Japanese experts to partner countries and that invited their counterparts to Japan to showcase Japanese medical technologies. Approximately 50 projects have been implemented in 24 countries over 5 years, and 19,638 individuals have been trained. As a result, the introduced technology was adopted in national guidelines in 4 projects and the introduced equipment was procured in the partner country in 17 projects. In total, 912,334 individuals have benefitted from the introduction of these medical technologies. The concept of "creating shared value" (CSV) could help promote project success by both creating economic value and encouraging social progress. However, the sustainability of that business model remains in question in terms of the internationalization of CSV. Several successful projects improved medical care and led to new business opportunities.
more
Ending the epidemics of HIV, tuberculosis and malaria by 2030 is within reach, but not yet fully in our grasp.
With only 11 years left, we have no time to waste. We must step up the fight now.
The burden of diabetes is enormous, positioning it as one of the main challenges facing public health today. Currently, it is estimated that 62 million people are living with diabetes in the Region of the Americas and projections show its prevalence will continue rising over the following years. The... Region shows the highest number of years of healthy life lost (through either disability or premature death) due to diabetes worldwide. The high costs associated with its treatment produce a heavy economic burden. Its complications can seriously affect the quality of life of people living with diabetes, their families, and society and overload health systems. This report shows the latest internationally comparable data on diabetes and its main risk factors by year, country, and sex.
more
La carga de la diabetes es enorme, posicionándola como uno de los principales desafíos que enfrenta la salud pública en la actualidad. Actualmente, se estima que 62 millones de personas viven con diabetes en la Región de las Américas y las proyecciones muestran que su prevalencia seguirá aumen...tando en los próximos años. La Región muestra el mayor número de años de vida saludable perdidos (ya sea por discapacidad o muerte prematura) debido a la diabetes en todo el mundo. Los altos costes asociados a su tratamiento producen una pesada carga económica. Sus complicaciones pueden afectar seriamente la calidad de vida de las personas que viven con diabetes, sus familias y la sociedad y sobrecargar los sistemas de salud. Este informe muestra los últimos datos comparables internacionalmente sobre la diabetes y sus principales factores de riesgo por año, país y sexo. También incluye un resumen de la respuesta de los sistemas de salud de los países a la diabetes, incluidos planes nacionales, objetivos, vigilancia, directrices y acceso a medicamentos y tecnologías esenciales, y sintetiza información sobre las complicaciones relacionadas con la diabetes y la estrecha relación entre la diabetes y otras patologías, como enfermedades cardiovasculares, tuberculosis y COVID-19.
more
Healthcare workers throughout the country should be on high alert for suspected cholera cases, regardless of travel history
MOBILISIERUNG INLÄNDISCHER ÖFFENTLICHER RESSOURCEN FÜR GESUNDHEIT
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
more
To examine how health aid is spent and channelled, including the distribution of resources across countries and between
subsectors. Our aim was to complement the many qualitative critiques of health aid with a quantitative review and to provide insights on the level of development assistance availa...ble to recipient countries to address their health and health development needs.
more
The World Health Organization (WHO) is releasing the second edition of its Global Accelerated Action for the Health of Adolescents (AA-HA!) guidance. The document aims to equip governments to respond to the health and well-being challenges, opportunities and needs of adolescents.
The guidance pro...vides the latest available data on adolescent health and well-being. It also outlines an updated list of core indicators that data should be collected on. Globally, road injury was the top cause of death for adolescent males in 2019. Among female adolescents, the leading causes of death were diarrhoeal diseases among the younger group (10-14 years) and tuberculosis (TB) in the older group (15-19 years).
Over the last 20 years, mortality rates have declined among adolescents globally, with the largest decline in older (15–19 years) adolescent girls. For non-fatal diseases, the burden has not improved over the past two decades, with the main causes of ill health in this category being: mental health conditions (depressive and anxiety disorders, childhood behavioural disorders), iron deficiency anaemia, skin diseases and migraine.
Adolescent well-being depends on a range of factors, including healthy food, education, life skills and employability, connectedness, feeling valued by society, safe and supportive environments, resilience, and the freedom to make choices. To take an appropriately holistic approach, the guidance outlines how to take crosscutting action to support adolescent health and well-being, with mutually reinforcing interventions across sectors, such as health, education, social protection, and telecommunications. Targeted efforts are also required to engage adolescents, as they trust health systems less than adults do and are especially vulnerable to modern-day trends, like online bullying and gaming.
more
People affected by impairments and disabilities associated with TB are even more likely to belong to marginalized segments of society and are more likely to have their human rights unprotected. The challenges faced by people affected by TB include the consequences of impairment and disability associ...ated with the disease, its treatment as well as with the stigma and discrimination applied to people affected by TB. There is now compelling evidence that the disease and its treatment affect quality of life and life expectancy even after successful treatment.
The WHO Global Tuberculosis Programme has produced the first policy brief on TB-associated disability, building on the increasing evidence in recent years on the unaddressed needs of people with TB who experience impairment and disability while on TB treatment and after completing TB treatment.
more
WHO has updated its guidelines for COVID-19 therapeutics, with revised recommendations for patients with non-severe COVID-19. This is the 13th update to these guidelines.
Updated risk rates for hospital admission in patients with non-severe COVID-19
The guidance includes updated risk rates for... hospital admission in patients with non-severe COVID-19.
The current COVID-19 virus variants tend to cause less severe disease while immunity levels are higher due to vaccination, leading to lower risks of severe illness and death for most patients.
This update includes new baseline risk estimates for hospital admission in patients with non-severe COVID-19. The new ‘moderate risk’ category now includes people previously considered to be high risk including older people and/or those with chronic conditions, disabilities, and comorbidities of chronic disease. The updated risk estimates will assist healthcare professionals to identify individuals at high, moderate or low risk of hospital admission, and to tailor treatment according to WHO guidelines:
**High: **People who are immunosuppressed remain at higher risk if they contract COVID-19, with an estimated hospitalization rate of 6%.
**Moderate: **People over 65 years old, those with conditions like obesity, diabetes and/or chronic conditions including chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, kidney or liver disease, cancer, people with disabilities and those with comorbidities of chronic disease are at moderate risk, with an estimated hospitalization rate of 3%.
Low: Those who are not in the high or moderate risk categories are at low risk of hospitalization (0.5%). Most people are low risk.
Review of COVID-19 treatments for people with non-severe COVID-19
WHO continues to strongly recommend nirmatrelvir-ritonavir (also known by its brand name ‘Paxlovid’) for people at high-risk and moderate risk of hospitalization. The recommendations state that nirmatrelvir-ritonavir is considered the best choice for most eligible patients, given its therapeutic benefits, ease of administration and fewer concerns about potential harms. Nirmatrelvir-ritonavir was first recommended by WHO in April 2022.
If nirmatrelvir-ritonavir is not available to patients at high-risk of hospitalization, WHO suggests the use of molnupiravir or remdesivir instead.
WHO suggests against the use of molnupiravir and remdesivir for patients at moderate risk, judging the potential harms to outweigh the limited benefits in patients at moderate risk of hospital admission.
For people at low risk of hospitalization, WHO does not recommend any antiviral therapy. Symptoms like fever and pain can continue to be managed with analgesics like paracetamol.
WHO also recommends against use of a new antiviral (VV116) for patients, except in clinical trials.
The update also includes a strong recommendation against the use of ivermectin for patients with non-severe COVID-19. WHO continues to advise that in patients with severe or critical COVID-19, ivermectin should only be used in clinical trials.
more