This manual was developed based on the recommendations of a global technical consultation on child health in humanitarian emergencies co-organized by WHO and UNICEF at the end of 2003. WHO in collaboration with the Centre for Refugee and Disaster Response, Bloomberg School of Public Health, Johns Ho...pkins University undertook a systematic review in 2004. It demonstrated that existing guidelines, including The Integrated Management of Childhood Illness (IMCI), do not cover all priority conditions in emergencies. The objective of this manual is to provide comprehensive guidance on child care in emergencies.
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hese are two parallel guidelines, one for small hospitals and another one for large hospitals. In view of heavy burden of malaria and prevalence of drug resistant falciparum malaria in the South-East Asia Region, the guidelines were developed for use by medical personnel who treat severe malaria pat...ients, referred from lower-level health facilities. The guidelines were developed by the WHO Regional Office for South-East Asia and the WHO Collaborating Centre for the Clinical Management of Malaria, Faculty of Tropical Medicine, Mahidol University, Thailand. The guidelines are based on a review of current evidence, existing WHO guidelines and experience in the management of malaria in the Region
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This is a detailed manual giving a step by step approach to undertaking the pharmacovigilance of antiretrovirals. It is intended to be a source of practical advice for Pharmacovigilance Centres and health professionals involved in HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment programmes. A number of WHO publica...tions are available that provide a background to pharmacovigilance and, as far as possible, that material will not be repeated here. Health officials, planners, the staff of Pharmacovigilance Centres, public health teams and all health workers should become familiar with these publications, which are: • Safety of Medicines: A guide to detecting and reporting adverse drug reactions
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Climate change (CC) impacts on health outcomes, both direct and indirect, are sufficient to jeopardize achieving the World Bank Group’s visions and agendas in poverty reduction, population resilience, and health, nutrition and population (HNP). In the last 5 years, the number of voices calling for... stronger international action on climate change and health has increased, as have the scale and depth of activities. But current global efforts in climate and health are inadequately integrated. As a result, actions to address climate change, including World Bank Group (WBG) investment and lending, are missing opportunities to simultaneously promote better health outcomes and more resilient populations and health sectors. Accordingly, with the financial support of the Nordic Development Fund (NDF), the World Bank Group set out to develop an approach and a 4-year action plan, outlined in this paper, to integrate health-related climate considerations into selected WBG sector plans and investments.
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Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) has emerged as a major public health problem all over the world. Infections caused by resistant microbes fail to respond to treatment, resulting in prolonged illness and greater risk of death. This document focuses on the mechanism to develop a practically applicable h...ospital antibiotic policy and standard treatment guidelines (STG). In addition, the document contains information on various effective strategies for implementation of STG. It also discusses various activities and information required for the development of the antibiogram, antibiotic policy and standard treatment guidelines, such as surveillance programmes, the cause and controlling strategies for AMR and HAI; performance measures of antibiogram, antibiotic policy and standard treatment guidelines. A model hospital STG for community-acquired pneumonia in adults is included.
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Emergence of antimicrobial resistance is a result of the use, overuse and misuse of antibiotics both in humans and animals. In Ethiopia, there are indications on the misuse of antibiotics by health care providers’, unskilled practitioners, and drug consumers. These coupled with rapid spread of res...istant bacteria and inadequate surveillance contributed to the problem. Bacterial infections are the major causes of death in Ethiopia. Studies on antibacterial resistance and on bacterial infections have shown that emerging antibacterial resistance threatens the management of bacterial infections; however, the prevention and containment has received far too little attention.
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New assessment guidelines for measuring the overall impact of mental health problems in Latin America have served as a catalyst for countries to review their mental health policies. Latin American countries have taken various steps to address long-standing problems such as structural difficulties, s...carce financial and human resources, and social, political, and cultural obstacles in the implementation of mental health policies and legislation. These policy developments, however, have had uneven results. Policies must reflect the desire, determination, and commitment of policy-makers to take mental health seriously and look after people’s mental health needs. This paper describes the development of mental health policies in Latin American countries, focusing on published data in peer-reviewed journals, and legislative change and its implementation. It presents a brief history of mental health policy developments, and analyzes the basis and practicalities of current practice.
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This manual provides practical guidelines for the management of children with severe malnutrition. It seeks to promote the best available therapy so as to reduce the risk of death, shorten the length of time spent in hospital, and facilitate rehabilitation and full recovery. Emphasis is given to the... management of severely malnourished children in hospital and health centres; the management of severely malnourished children in disaster situations and refugee camps and of severely malnourished adolescents and adults is also considered briefly.
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This booklet presents data on NCD mortality and prevalence of NCD risk factors, by country, for the Region of the Americas. The focus is on the 5 x 5 NCD agenda which includes the main NCDs (cardiovascular diseases, cancer, diabetes, and chronic respiratory diseases), and mental health (suicide); as... well as the main NCD risk factors (tobacco use, harmful use of alcohol, unhealthy diet, insufficient physical activity), along with air pollution. It includes information on the number and percentage of deaths, age-standardized death rates, premature death from NCDs and the prevalence of NCD risk f actors.
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Outstanding child and adolescent TB priorities include the need to: find the missing children with active TB and link them to TB care; prevent TB in children who are in contact with infectious TB cases (through implementation of active contact investigation and provision of preventive treatment); an...d advance integration within general child health services, including maternal and child health/ reproductive, maternal, newborn, child and adolescent health, HIV, nutrition and other programmes.
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Civil Society Organisations’ contribution towards community engagement to access and demand health services and encourage communities to practice appropriate health-seeking behaviour in Mon and Chin States
The following report is a study of 14 villages under the Collective Voices project (Nov...ember 2015-December 2017) in the states of Mon and Chin. The objectives of the study were:
(1) to explore Village Health Committee (VHC) members, Basic Health Staff (BHS), and community members’ perceptions on community engagement in seeking and demanding health care and
(2) to describe health-seeking behaviours relating to Maternal, Newborn, and Child Health and hygiene practices among target beneficiaries.
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A role for nuclear techniques
Antimicrobials play a critical role in the treatment of human and animal (aquatic and terrestrial) diseases, which has led to their widespread application and use. Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is the ability of microorganisms to stop an antibiotic, such as an antimic...robial, antiviral or antimalarial, from working against them. Globally, about 700 000 deaths per year arise from resistant infections as a result of the fact that antimicrobial drugs have become less effective at killing resistant pathogens. Antimicrobial chemicals that are present in environmental compartments can trigger the development of AMR. These chemicals can also cause antibiotic-resistant bacteria (ARB) to further spread antibiotic resistance genes (ARG) because they may have an evolutionary advantage over non-resistant bacteria.
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This is the story of how an experiment in the north of Ghana changed the health of a nation. How health staff in remote and rural areas are working tirelessly to prevent the deaths of mothers and children. How a radical approach to health research, known as embedded research, has revolutionized how ...the government delivers health services under difficult circumstances.
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Coronavirus Disease-19 (COVID-19) was declared a global pandemic on 11 March 2020, and Malawi declared its first case on 2 April. As of 30 April, there were 36 confirmed positive cases of COVID-19 and 3 deaths. A State of Disaster was declared by President Arthur Peter Mutharika on 20 March and a 21...-day lockdown was implemented from 18 April to 9 May. The lockdown measures include: bans on public gatherings; closure of schools; and bans on international flights and cross-border passenger buses.
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High salt consumption is an important determinant of high blood pressure and reducing it would improve health outcomes by lowering cardiovascular disease and therefore death rates. Reducing salt intake has been identified as one of the most effective public health measures and is one of the leading ...targets at global, regional and national levels to reduce the burden of noncommunicable diseases. The purpose of the Dietary Salt Intake Survey in the Republic of Moldova was to establish current baseline average consumption of salt (sodium), potassium and iodine through 24-hour urinary excretion testing among a random sample of the adult population (aged 18–69 years), and to assess the knowledge, attitudes, practices and behaviour around dietary salt in order to enable more efficient planning and the implementation of an effective salt-reduction strategy in the Republic of Moldova.
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Since the release of the first volume in May 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic has continued to rage around the world. By mid-March, 2021, countries around the globe had reported over 123 million cases—a nearly five-fold increase since this report’s previous volume—and over 2.7 million deaths attrib...uted to the disease. And while new case loads are currently on the rise again, the global health community has already administered almost 400 million doses of vaccines, at last offering some signs of hope and progress.
Economic impacts threaten to undo decades of recent progress in poverty reduction, child nutrition and gender equality, and exacerbate efforts to support refugees, migrants, and other vulnerable communities. National and local governments—together with international and private-sector partners—must deploy vaccines as efficiently, safely and equitably as possible while still monitoring for new outbreaks and continuing policies to protect those who do not yet have immunity.
More than ever, the world needs reliable and trustworthy data and statistics to inform these important decisions. The United Nations and all member organizations of the Committee for the Coordination of Statistical Activities (CCSA) collect and make available a wealth of information for assessing the multifaceted impacts of the pandemic. This report updates some of the global and regional trends presented in Volume I and offers a snapshot of how COVID-19 continues to affect the world today across multiple domains.
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The United Nations Commission on Life-Saving Commodities (UNCLSC, 2012) defined 13 health products to end preventable deaths of woman and children. One of those 13 products is the neonatal resuscitator, is indispensable medical device to save newborns from asphyxia at birth. For the efficient use of... neonatal resuscitation, training of healthcare professionals using neonatal resuscitation manikins is the most effective approach. Critical lifesaving trainings calls for the need of neonatal resuscitation manikins with the right features.
The purpose of the WHO Neonatal resuscitation manikin: technical specifications is to provide a minimum standard baseline to meet the increasing demand to procure good quality, affordable, accessible, and appropriate neonatal resuscitation manikins. Towards the development of this baseline, this document includes compilation of available scientific evidence from technical literature, international publications, expert reviews, and an industry survey which was conducted by WHO medical devices team.
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Healthy communities rely on well-functioning ecosystems. They provide clean air, fresh water, medicines and food security. They also limit disease and stabilize the climate. But biodiversity loss is happening at unprecedented rates, impacting human health worldwide, according to a new state of knowl...edge review of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and WHO.
The report synthesizes the available information on the most important inter-linkages between biodiversity, ecosystem stability, and epidemic infectious diseases such as the Ebola virus; and the connection between biodiversity, nutritional diversity and health. It also covers the potential benefits of closer partnerships between conservation and health, from improved surveillance of infectious diseases in wildlife and human populations, to promoting access to green spaces to promote physical activity and mental health. It also highlights the many areas in which further research is needed.
The Joint report hopes to provide a useful reference for the Sustainable Development Goals and post-2015 development agenda, which represents an unique opportunity to promote integrated approaches to biodiversity and health by highlighting that biodiversity contributes to human well-being, and highlighting that biodiversity needs protection for development to be sustainable.
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Food environments are usually defined as the settings with all the different types of
food made available and accessible to people as they go about their daily lives.
That is, the range of food in supermarkets, small retail outlets, wet markets, street
food stalls, coffee shops, tea houses, s...chool canteens, restaurants, and all the other
venues where people buy and eat food. These environments differ enormously depending on the context. They can be extensive and diverse, with a seemingly endless array of options and price ranges, or they can be sparse, with very few options on offer. Because they determine what food consumers can access at a given moment in time, at what price, and with what degree of convenience, food environments both constrain and prompt the consumer’s choice.Food environments are influenced by the food systems which supply them, and vice versa. Food systems encompass the entire range of activities, people and institutions involved in the production, processing,
marketing, consumption and disposal of food (FAO, 2013). They include but are not limited to food supply chains. Making food systems nutrition-sensitive can contribute to addressing all forms of malnutrition, as food systems determine whether the food needed for good nutrition are available, affordable, acceptable and of adequate
quantity and quality. How closely food systems and food environments are interrelated and interdependent, and the degree to which external factors affect nutrition outcomes, varies from setting to setting.Many of today’s food systems
and food environments are challenged in supporting consumer choices that are
consistent with healthy diets and good nutrition. Consumers are not making choices based on nutrition and health, and poor diet is now the number one risk factor for death and disability worldwide (GBD, 2015). Food systems that do not enable healthy diets are increasingly recognized as an underlying cause of malnutrition (GLOPAN, 2016), and malnutrition, irrespective of form, has a huge cost. Economic costs associated with undernutrition are estimated at $1-2 trillion per year, about 2-3% of global GDP (FAO, 2013); the global economic cost of obesity and associated diet-related non-communicable diseases is estimated at $2 trillion per year, about 2.8% of global GDP (McKinsey, 2014). Influencing food environments for promoting healthy diets is an emerging strategy to address today’s nutrition challenges.
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The world is not on track to end the AIDS pandemic. New infections are rising and AIDS deaths are continuing in too many communities. This report reveals why: inequalities are holding us back. In frank terms, the report calls the world’s attention to the painful reality that dangerous inequalities... are undermining the AIDS response and jeopardising the health security of everyone. The report highlights three specific areas of inequality for which concrete action is immediately possible—gender
inequalities and harmful masculinities driving HIV; marginalisation and criminalisation of key populations, which our data show is resulting in starkly little progress for those populations and undermining the overall response; and
inequalities for children whose lives must matter more than their market share. But this is not a counsel of despair, it is a call to action. Through bold action to confront these inequalities, we can end AIDS.
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