23 December 2020 This document summarizes WHO recommendations for the rational use of personal protective equipment (PPE) in health care settings and temporary strategies during acute supply shortages. This document also contains 2 Annex sections describing updated PPE use recommendations for health... workers based on the transmission scenario, setting, and activity in the context of COVID-19 (Annex 1), and updated considerations for the decontamination or reprocessing of PPE (Annex 2). This guidance is intended for public health authorities, organizations, and focal persons involved in decisions regarding PPE distribution, management, and use by health workers.
Available in Arabic, French, English, Spanish and Russian
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WHO Regional Office for Africa
Infection Prevention and Control Programmes
January 2020
Patients with suspected coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) can infect others at any time, including during transfer and transport. COVID-19 is a new infectious disease that requires contact and droplet precautions; lapses in infection prevention and control (IPC) can easily happen at vulnerable mom...ents such as during transfer. This guide aims to identify key steps to prepare the community and health system response to ensure IPC is maintained during transfer and transport. This guide is intended for personnel involved in coordinating and performing transfer and transport of patients with suspected COVID-19 requiring hospital care.
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Primary care can play a significant role in the COVID-19 response by differentiating patients with respiratory symptoms from those with COVID-19, making an early diagnosis, helping vulnerable people cope with their anxiety about the virus, and reducing the demand for hospital services. This document... provides national and subnational health managers, as well as staff at primary care facilities, with interim guidance on timely, effective and safe supportive management of patients with suspected and confirmed COVID-19 at the primary care level; and delivery of essential health services at the primary care level during the COVID-19 outbreak
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9 April 2020
WHO has published the guidance “Clinical management of severe acute respiratory infection (SARI) when COVID-19 disease is suspected” This document is intended for clinicians taking care of hospitalized adult and paediatric patients with severe acute respiratory infection (SARI) whe...n COVID-19 infection is suspected. Optimized supportive care should be provided to ensure the best possible chance for survival of COVID-19 patients as described in the WHO guidance:
1. Management of severe COVID-19 requires oxygen therapy and monitoring. Supplemental oxygen therapy should be given immediately to patients with SARI and respiratory distress, hypoxaemia or shock.
2. Management of critical COVID-19 (acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS)) requires advanced oxygen/ventilatory support.
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Doing What Matters in Times of Stress: An Illustrated Guide is a stress management guide for coping with adversity. The guide aims to equip people with practical skills to help cope with stress. A few minutes each day are enough to practice the self-help techniques. The guide can be used alone or wi...th the accompanying audio exercises.
Informed by evidence and extensive field testing, the guide is for anyone who experiences stress, wherever they live and whatever their circumstances.
Different languages available: https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/9789240003927
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The latest update (28 January 2021) includes the following addition and revision:
biosafety aspects for working with antigen-detecting rapid diagnostic test;
handling new variants of SARS-CoV-2 in the laboratory;
updated assay decontamination before disposal;
personal protectiv...e equipment (PPE) for specimen collection;
addressing chemical hazards and their safe disposal; and
the fourth edition of the WHO Laboratory Biosafety Manual (LBM4) is now available and the terminology in this guidance was aligned with the LBM4.
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The purpose of this document is to provide guidance on the cleaning and disinfection of environmental surfaces in the context of COVID-19. This guidance is intended for health care professionals, public health professionals and health authorities that are developing and implementing policies and sta...ndard operating procedures (SOP) on the cleaning and disinfection of environmental surfaces in the context of COVID-19.
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This document updates the earlier version published in April 2020. In recent weeks, information on the potential use of chloroquine or hydroxychloroquine for the treatment of people with COVID-19 has been disseminated in academic journals and public media. Although there are now ongoing clinical tri...als testing the efficacy and safety of several medicines for COVID-19, as of the date of this document, there is a lack of quality evidence to demonstrate chloroquine and/or hydroxychloroquine are effective in the treatment of COVID-19. Evidence is recently emerging via small studies with sub-optimal methodologies that are conflicting.
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The WHO COVID-19 Clinical management: living guidance contains the Organization’s most up-to-date recommendations for the clinical management of people with COVID-19. Providing guidance that is comprehensive and holistic for the optimal care of COVID-19 patients throughout their entire illness is ...important. The latest version of this living guideline is available in pdf format (via the ‘Download’ button) and via an online platform, and is updated regularly as new evidence emerges. No further updates to the previous existing recommendations were made in this latest version.
This updated (fifth) version contains 16 new recommendations for the rehabilitation of adults with post COVID-19 condition (see Chapter 24)
This updated (fourth) version contains three new recommendations regarding hospitalized patients with severe or critical COVID-19
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Updated 2022. This guide addresses the care pathway from presentation of the patient to a health facility to patient discharge. It considers different levels of disease severity, from asymptomatic individuals to critically ill patients. Accounting for variations in the benefits and harms of chest im...aging in different situations, remarks are provided to describe the circumstances under which each recommendation would benefit patients. The guide also includes implementation considerations for different settings, provides suggestions for impact monitoring and evaluation and identifies knowledge gaps meriting further research.
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This technical guidance outlines current evidence, knowledge and best practice relating to incidences of violence and injuries among refugees and migrants in the WHO European Region. It highlights key principles, summarizes priority actions and challenges, maps existing international commitments and... frameworks and provides practical policy considerations for preventing and responding to such challenges. Specific areas for intervention include ensuring safe passage for migration; addressing causes of violence and injuries in transit and destination countries, including changing norms and values; identifying victims and providing care and protection; investigating and prosecuting perpetrators; and strengthening the knowledge base. While the main intended audience of this technical guidance series are policy-makers across sectors at local, national and regional levels, the contents of this publication will also be of value for health-care practitioners and law enforcement and border protection officials.
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The consolidated guidelines are complemented by an operational handbook which is designed to assist with implementation of the WHO recommendations by Member States, technical partners and others who are involved in the management of patients with DR-TB. The WHO Operational Handbook on Tuberculosis, ...Module 4: Treatment - Drug-Resistant Tuberculosis Treatment provides practical guidance on how to put in place the recommendations at the scale needed to achieve national and global impact.
The document provides information on different aspects of care and support for TB patients. In particular, the handbook provides practical guidance on the implementation of the interventions that enable treatment adherence such as social support, treatment administration options, digital adherence technologies. The practical guidance also includes models of care for all TB patients, models of care for children and adolescents, integrated care for TB, HIV and comorbidities, engagement of private sector, managing of TB in health emergencies. This new practical handbook also includes two important chapters on health education and counselling, and palliative care for patients with TB.
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Histoplasmosis is a disease caused by the fungus Histoplasma capsulatum. This disease is highly endemic in some regions of North America, Central America, and South America and is also reported in certain countries of Asia and Africa. It often affects people with impaired immunity, including people ...living with HIV, among whom the most frequent clinical presentation is disseminated histoplasmosis. The symptoms of disseminated histoplasmosis are non-specific and may be indistinguishable from those of other infectious diseases, especially disseminated tuberculosis (TB), thus complicating diagnosis and treatment. Histoplasmosis is one of the most frequent opportunistic infections caused by fungal pathogens among people living with HIV in the Americas and may be responsible for 5–15% of AIDS-related deaths every year in this Region. These guidelines aim to provide recommendations for the diagnosis, treatment, and management of disseminated histoplasmosis in persons living with HIV
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Настоящее руководство «Клиническое ведение случаев COVID-19» базируется на
вышеуказанных стратегических приоритетах и адресовано клиницистам, участвующим в
оказа...ии помощи пациентам с подозреваемой или подтвержденной инфекцией COVID-19.
Оно не предназначено для того, чтобы заменить индивидуальное клиническое суждение или
консультацию специалиста, но призвано помочь клиническим работникам в обеспечении
наиболее эффективного ведения случаев. Повышенное внимание в настоящем руководстве
уделяется вопросам, касающимся особых и уязвимых групп населения, таких как дети,
пожилые люди и беременные женщины.
Interim guidance on clinical management COVID-19
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One important application of digital health in TB patient care is the support that it can lend to medication adherence. TB programmes have already been using short message service (SMS), video-supported treatment (VOT) and event monitoring device for medication support ...(EMM)1 to help patients complete treatment and health-care workers to monitor both daily dosing and treatment continuity
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