Specific action sheets offer useful guidance on mental health and psychosocial support and cover the following areas coordination assessment monitoring and evaluation protection and human rights standards human resources community mobilisation and support health services education dissemination of i...nformation food security and nutrition shelter and site planning and water and sanitationthe guidelines include a matrix with guidance for emergency planning actions to be taken in the early stages of an emergency and comprehensive responses needed in the recovery and rehabilitation phases
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Gender-based Violence Area of Responsibility Working Group July 2010
n Autumn 2013, HHI Executive Director, Vincenzo Bollettino, traveled to the Philippines to participate in an assessment of civil-military engagement in the humanitarian response to Typhoon Haiyan. The report was sponsored by the Center for Excellence in Disaster Management and Humanitarian Assistanc...e.
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The 2019 Humanitarian Response Plan (HRP) sets out the framework within which the humanitarian community will respond to the large-scale humanitarian and protection needs in Syria throughout 2019, on the basis of the prioritization undertaken across and within sectors. The HRP, based on United Natio...ns’ assessments and analysis, also presents urgent funding requirements to address these needs. It is anchored by three strategic objectives: saving lives and alleviating suffering, enhancing protection, and increasing resilience. These objectives are interlinked and achieving positive outcomes for affected people requires concerted action across all three.
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Sudan recorded the first COVID-19 case on 13 March 2020 and, at the beginning of July, the Federal Ministry of Health had confirmed that nearly 10,000 people had contracted the virus, including over 600 who died from the disease across the country. Although more than 70 per cent of the confirmed cas...es are in the Khartoum area, COVID-19 has spread throughout the country, with the highest numbers recorded in the central and eastern states. With extremely low testing capacity — around 800 samples per day, the lowest in the region — the official figures of confirmed cases likely underestimate the extent of the pandemic and the actual situation is unknown.
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Over the last decade, there have been numerous disasters and major emergencies that have profoundly impacted the lives of millions of people worldwide. To support these crises, national and international emergency medical teams (EMTs) are often deployed to assist disaster affected populations. EMTs ...are teams of healthcare professionals composed most frequently of doctors, nurses, psychologists and others to provide direct clinical care to people affected by disasters and conflicts and to support local health systems. In agreement with the World Health Organization’s (WHO) Global Health Emergency Health Workforce programme, any health professional coming from another country to practice health care in a disaster setting must be part of a team that is qualified, trained, equipped, resourced, and meets minimum acceptable standards to practice.
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The domestic regulation of public health emergencies (PHEs) is inextricably linked to the regulation of other types of disaster. PHEs are usually governed at least partly by general disaster and emergency laws. Moreover, there is significant overlap in the legal mechanisms used to respond to PHEs an...d other types of disaster, including the declaration of a state of disaster or emergency and the use of emergency powers. Even where PHEs are regulated by separate instruments, those instruments must surmount many of the same policy and practical challenges as general disaster laws, such as finely balancing competing considerations (e.g. speedy response versus due process), facilitating the coordination of a multitude of actors, and protecting the most vulnerable within society. Finally, many contemporary developments in disaster risk management (DRM), such as a greater emphasis on risk reduction and preparedness, are just as pertinent to PHEs as to other types of disaster.
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Throughout the Americas, populations are aging and the Region is undergoing a rapid demographic transition. The aging index, which reflects the size of the older age groups per 100 compared to children under age 15, clearly demonstrates the increase in people aged 60 and older. Compared to global tr...ends, the Region of the Americas will have a larger number of people aged 60 and older than children under 15 by 2030, which is approximately 25 years before the global average. The COVID-19 pandemic has presented an unparalleled health crisis around the world. The impact on older persons and those with underlying health conditions has highlighted the challenges of addressing the needs of older populations during a public health emergency. Given this demographic transition it is essential to think about preparedness of systems and services to address this population’s needs, including an increase in emergency planning and protection of older populations.
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Emergency medical teams (EMT) are first response health care providers – doctors, nurses, paramedics, and others – during outbreaks and emergencies or disasters, working with governments, charities such as nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), armies, and international organizations such as the ...International Red Cross/Red Crescent movement. They comply with the classification and minimum standards set by the World Health Organization (WHO) and its partners and bring to an emergency their training and self-sufficiency so as not to burden the national health system. EMT initiatives strengthen national surge capacities and facilitate the deployment of internationally classified teams of health- care professionals to countries and territories during emergencies, particularly during disease outbreaks and natural disasters, providing immediate assistance when national health systems are overwhelmed . Considering that they aim to support the provision of quality clinical care services to populations affected by public health emergencies, the expectation is that financial resources and equipment will be available to enable the performance of the requested task.
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Strengthening rehabilitation in health emergency preparedness, response, and resilience: policy brief outlines the evidence for rehabilitation in emergencies and the need for greater preparedness of rehabilitation services. It shows how existing guidelines support the integration of rehabilitation i...n emergencies and sets out the steps that decision-makers can take to better integrate rehabilitation into health emergency preparedness and response.
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World Humanitarian Data and Trends presents global- and country-level data-and-trend analysis about humanitarian
crises and assistance. Its purpose is to consolidate this information and present it in an accessible way, providing policymakers, researchers and humanitarian practitioners with an evid...ence base to support humanitarian policy decisions and provide context for operational decisions.
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Benchmarking is a strategic process often used by businesses and institutes to standardize performance in relation to the best practices of their sector. The World Health Organization (WHO) and partners have developed a tool with a list of benchmarks and corresponding suggested actions that can be a...pplied to implement the International Health Regulations 2005 (IHR) and strengthen health emergency prevention, preparedness, response and resilience capacities.
The first edition of the benchmarks was published in 2019 to support countries in developing, implementing and documenting progress of national IHR or health security plans (e.g. national action plan for health security (NAPHS), national action plan for emerging infectious diseases, public health emergencies and health security and other country level plans for health emergencies). The tool has been updated to incorporate lessons from COVID-19 and other health emergencies, to align with the updated IHR monitoring & evaluation framework (IHR MEF) tools and the health systems for health security framework, and to support strengthening health emergency prevention, preparedness, response and resilience (HEPR) capacities and the Preparedness and Resilience for Emerging Threats (PRET) initiative.
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