The Lancet Countdown is an international collaboration that independently monitors the health consequences of a changing climate. Publishing updated, new, and improved indicators each year, the Lancet Countdown represents the
consensus of leading researchers from 43 academic institutions and UN ag...encies. The 44 indicators of this report expose an unabated rise in the health impacts of
climate change and the current health consequences of the delayed and inconsistent response of countries around the globe—providing a clear imperative for accelerated action that puts the health of people and planet above all else.The 2021 report coincides with the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change 26th Conference of the Parties (COP26), at which countries are facing pressure to realise the ambition of the Paris Agreement to keep the global average temperature rise to 1·5°C and to
mobilise the financial resources required for all countries to have an effective climate response. These negotiations unfold in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic—a global health crisis that has claimed millions of lives, affected livelihoods and communities around the globe, and exposed deep fissures and inequities in the world’s capacity to cope with, and respond to, health emergencies. Yet, in its response to both crises, the world is faced with an unprecedented opportunity to ensure a healthy future for all.
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INTRODUCTION: The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted health systems around the world. The objectives of this study are to estimate the overall effect of the pandemic on essential health service use and outcomes in Mexico, describe observed and predicted trends in services over 24 months, and to estimat...e the number of visits lost through December 2020.
METHODS: We used health information system data for January 2019 to December 2020 from the Mexican Institute of Social Security (IMSS), which provides health services for more than half of Mexico's population-65 million people. Our analysis includes nine indicators of service use and three outcome indicators for reproductive, maternal and child health and non-communicable disease services. We used an interrupted time series design and linear generalised estimating equation models to estimate the change in service use and outcomes from April to December 2020. Estimates were expressed using average marginal effects on the risk ratio scale.
RESULTS: The study found that across nine health services, an estimated 8.74 million patient visits were lost in Mexico. This included a decline of over two thirds for breast and cervical cancer screenings (79% and 68%, respectively), over half for sick child visits and female contraceptive services, approximately one-third for childhood vaccinations, diabetes, hypertension and antenatal care consultations, and a decline of 10% for deliveries performed at IMSS. In terms of patient outcomes, the proportion of patients with diabetes and hypertension with controlled conditions declined by 22% and 17%, respectively. Caesarean section rate did not change.
CONCLUSION: Significant disruptions in health services show that the pandemic has strained the resilience of the Mexican health system and calls for urgent efforts to resume essential services and plan for catching up on missed preventive care even as the COVID-19 crisis continues in Mexico.
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Available in English, French, Spanish and Russian from the website https://apps.who.int/iris/handle/10665/344562
This report challenges policy-makers and political leaders to tackle fossil fuel production and consumption as a health control issue, in the same way that smoking has been reduced and regulated. Fossil fuel combustion is a major source of toxic air pollution that kills 7 million people every year, ...almost the same as the number of deaths caused by tobacco smoking.
In 2018, the World Health Organization (WHO) recognised air pollution as a major health risk factor. There is widespread public discussion about the effects of fossil fuel combustion and emissions on climate change… but what about the effect on our health? Climate change poses a threat not only to the health of the planet, but also to humans.
The case studies evaluated in this report offer examples of mechanisms that can be used to restrict the production and consumption of unhealthy commodities, so that the health, air pollution and climate communities can learn from one another, using shared approaches and language. These case studies show that the connection with health is a strong argument to support sustainable change.
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History has shown that governments tend to deprioritize environmental commitments during times of financial and public crises as they work to mitigate immediate needs—and the age of COVID-19 has been no different. Even though human interaction with wildlife is believed to be the cause of the pande...mic, the focus on COVID’s fallout has deprioritized the importance of reversing the damage humans have done to the planet.
COVID has had a multifaceted and detrimental effect on environmental conservation. Not only has funding been diverted to deal with the pandemic, conservation-oriented organizations are operating with minimal staff or have closed entirely. People whose daily work it is to advance environmental science and protect the land and water have become ill or have been forced to stay home because of travel restrictions. Plastic use is at an all-time high.
The good news is that there is an unprecedented opportunity for philanthropy to recharge the effort to protect the planet. This Giving Smarter Guide examines the state of environmental philanthropy, and provides an overview of potential strategic starting points for philanthropy and impact capital to play a role in saving the planet. In addition to offering recommendations specific to the COVID-19 response, the Center for Strategic Philanthropy also asks the questions that philanthropists should consider at the start of their journey into the field of conservation philanthropy.
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The COVID-19 pandemic has led to large increases in healthcare waste, straining under resourced healthcare facilities and exacerbating environmental impacts from solid waste. This report quantifies the additional COVID-19 healthcare waste generated, describes current healthcare waste management syst...ems and their deficiencies, and summarizes emerging best practices and solutions to reduce the impact of waste on human and environmental health. The recommendations included in the report build on actions in the WHO manifesto for a healthy recovery from COVID-19: prescriptions and actionables for a healthy and green recovery. They target the global, national and facility levels to promote a “win–win” scenario for COVID-19 PPE use, testing and vaccinations that are safe and support environmental sustainability.
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Round 3: Key informant findings from 129 countries, territories and areas - Quarter 4 2021
Countries reported disruptions in all health-care settings. In more than half of countries surveyed, many people are still unable to access care at the primary care and community care levels. Significant dis...ruptions have also been reported in emergency care, particularly concerning given the impact on people with urgent health needs. Thirty-six per cent of countries reported disruptions to ambulance services; 32% to 24-hour emergency room services; and 23% to emergency surgeries.
Elective surgeries have also been disrupted in 59% of countries, which can have accumulating consequences on health and well-being as the pandemic continues. Disruptions to rehabilitative care and palliative care were also reported in around half of the countries surveyed.
Major barriers to health service recovery include pre-existing health systems issues which have been exacerbated by the pandemic as well as decreased demand for care.
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Community Health Volunteers
Connecting global priorities: biodiversity and human health: a state of knowledge review
One of the many gender inequities in the health and care workforce that COVID-19 has exposed is around the fit and design of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE). The rapid onset and scale of COVID-19 led to shortages of PPE in most countries, causing preventable infection and mortality among healthc...are workers and others on the front lines. Even though most health workers are women, manufacturing specifications for medical PPE are usually drawn up based on the male body and there have been many reports of PPE not designed for women's bodies.
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The APCA Atlas provides the most up-to-date information of palliative care development in nearly all countries in Africa, using indicators derived, rated, and chosen by in-country African experts followed by a thorough Delphi consensus process with a panel of international experts on palliative care... indicators
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The purpose of this publication is to to provide a practical, stepwise approach to the implementation of the national action plans on AMR within the human health sector; and to provide a process and collation of existing WHO tools to prioritize, cost, implement, monitor and evaluate national action ...plan activities. The target audience of the publication are national/subnational stakeholders working on AMR within the human health sector. This includes national health authorities, national multi-sectoral coordination groups, senior technical experts and policymakers involved in implementing AMR activities at all levels of the health system, and implementation partners to accelerate sustainable implementation and monitoring and evaluation of national action plans on AMR.
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WHO issued an updated appeal (May 2022) detailing its resource needs for Ukraine and refugee-receiving and hosting countries for March-August for Ukraine and March-December 2022 for other countries.
The needs are an estimated US$ 147.5 million: US$ 80 million for health response in Ukraine and ano...ther US$ 67.5 million is needed to address the health needs of Ukrainian people affected by the conflict in refugee-receiving and hosting countries.
With the funds sought, WHO aims to ensure, until August, that up to 6 million people can access essential health services including trauma care in Ukraine.
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This guidance addresses rationale, risk-based scenarios, practical considerations prior to adoption of the self-testing products, quality assurance, safety and ethical considerations, and data management considerations for COVID-19 self-testing. The Africa CDC recommends the use of rapid antigen sel...f-testing within two key scenarios. The first includes testing for case identification within scenarios with a high risk of infection, including symptomatic cases and contacts of a confirmed case. The second scenario involves general screening within scenarios of low or unknown risk exposure allowing for self-care such as before gatherings with at-risk individuals and prior to participation in events involving members of different households. Within these scenarios, a positive test result indicates likelihood of current infection, while a negative test result indicates a lower risk of active infection, though it does not rule out infection altogether. All positive cases should be managed following the national COVID-19 management protocol of Member States.ssur
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This report summarizes the latest scientific knowledge on the links between exposure to air pollution and adverse health effects in children. It is intended to inform and motivate individual and collective action by health care professionals to prevent damage to children’s health from exposure to ...air pollution.
Air pollution is a major environmental health threat. Exposure to fine particles in both the ambient environment and in the household causes about seven million premature deaths each year. Ambient air pollution alone imposes enormous costs on the global economy, amounting to more than US$ 5 trillion in total welfare losses in 2013.
This public health crisis is receiving more attention, but one critical aspect is often overlooked: how air pollution affects children in uniquely damaging ways. Recent data released by the World Health Organization (WHO) show that air pollution has a vast and terrible impact on child health and survival. Globally, 93% of all children live in environments with air pollution levels above the WHO guidelines (see the full report, Air pollution and child health: prescribing clean air. More than one in every four deaths of children under 5 years of age is directly or indirectly related to environmental risks. Both ambient air pollution and household air pollution contribute to respiratory tract infections that resulted in 543 000 deaths in children under the age of 5 years in 2016.
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