This publication provides managers with guidance on how to create basic HIV prevention cascades as a starting point to enhance their ability to monitor and improve their programming and to facilitate comparisons of programme effectiveness across sites.
To assess the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on health and HIV expenditure, UNAIDS carried out a modelling study on fiscal space for health and HIV. From a sample of 28 countries, three countries—the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Jamaica, and Lesotho—were selected to capture health and HIV ...expenditure impacts across countries with especially marked differences in burdens of disease (including HIV prevalence), HIV donor dependency, level of economic development, and geographic location. While the three-country sample is too small to permit findings to be generalized to other countries, these analyses are useful for informing UNAIDS’ work to identify some policy positions to minimize the COVID-19 pandemic’s impact on the HIV response.
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In this era, grand challenges lies in biodiversity loss, climate change, and global noncommunicable diseases signify that planet and humanity are in crisis. Scholarly evidence from human and animal kingdom suggest that there is an optimism in planetary health which can provide a unique and novel con...cept where efforts toward survival and remediation can be made. With accurate navigation, the current challenges can be mitigated leading to a new reality, one in which the core value is the well‐being of all. This paper discusses the drivers of planetary health and the role of community health workers (CHWs) in making health‐care system more resilient that can produce multiple benefits to community and overall planetary health. A web‐based international database such as Google, Google Scholar, SCOPUS/MEDLINE/PubMed, and JSTOR was searched relevant to a planetary health framework. The study findings suggest that CHWs can offer health care interventions through environmental health cobenefits across the spectrum of health effects of climate change cause and effects. These actions have been divided into four major categories (i. health care promotion and prevention, ii. health care strengthening, iii. advocacy, and iv. education and research) that CHWs perform through a variety of roles and functions they are engaged in protecting planetary health. CHWs contribute toward achieving sustainable development goals such as planetary health and focus on environment sustainability and well‐being of entire mankind.
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For most people in displacement contexts, there are simply not enough vaccines available in the places where they are hosted: 85% of refugees are hosted in lower- and middle-income countries, while in the first six months of this year 85% of vaccines went to wealthy countries; lower- and middle inco...me countries have still received only a fraction of the vaccine doses they require.3 Shortages in these countries can also pose particular risks to vaccination campaigns aimed at displaced populations, as they can result in them being deprioritized.
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The world is facing an unprecedented range of emergencies. In reaction to these complex adversities, many people experience considerable distress and impairment, and a minority may even go on to develop mental health conditions. Meanwhile, those with pre-existing mental health conditions may experie...nce a worsening of their condition and are at risk of neglect, abandonment, abuse and lack of access to support. Unfortunately, evidence-based mental health care is often extremely limited in humanitarian settings. In response, the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) published the Mental Health Gap Action Programme (mhGAP) Humanitarian Intervention Guide (mhGAP-HIG) in 2015. This practical tool supports health-care providers in assessing and offering first-line management of mental, neurological and substance use (MNS) conditions in humanitarian emergency settings.
2 December 2021. The current report, Stories of change from four countries: Building capacity for integrating mental health care within health services across humanitarian settings, describes efforts in four countries to build evidence-based mental health systems in humanitarian emergency settings using the mhGAP-HIG. This report includes three sections, the first describing the importance of scaling up mental health care in emergency contexts, the second outlining case studies (“stories of change”) to scale up the Mental Health Gap Action Programme (mhGAP) programme in four settings and the third describing lessons learned by stakeholders.
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The World Health Organization and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria are part of a group of agencies working together to accelerate progress towards the health-related SDGs through the Global Action Plan for Healthy Lives and Well-being for All. Understanding patterns of inequal...ities in these diseases is essential for taking strategic, evidence-informed action to realize our shared vision of ending the epidemics of HIV, TB and malaria.
This report presents the first comprehensive analysis of the magnitude and patterns of socioeconomic, demographic and geographic inequalities in disease burden and access to services for prevention and treatment.
The results confirm there have been improvements in service coverage and decreased disease burden at the national level over the past decade. But they also reveal an uncomfortable reality: unfair inequalities between population subgroups within countries are widespread and have remained largely unchanged over the past decade. For some disease indicators, inequalities are even worsening.
Moreover, the report points to the persistent lack of available data to fully understand inequality patterns in HIV, TB and malaria. Collecting data to improve the monitoring of inequalities in these diseases is vital to develop targeted responses for impact.
There are, encouragingly, isolated successes in reducing inequities. Change is possible when deliberate action is taken to reach disadvantaged populations.
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WHO is launching a “Revised edition, 2021” for the Caring for women subjected to violence: A WHO training curriculum for health-care providers today. The revised edition includes 4 new modules three of which are for health managers to assess and strengthen health facility readiness and one modul...e, which is for managers and providers to support prevention of violence against women. The earlier content published in 2019 remains unchanged. The 2021 edition is aimed at creating an enabling health systems environment for health workers to provide quality care to women subjected to violence.
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Development of one or more vaccines for Neisseria gonorrhoeae is an important objective for sexual and reproductive health worldwide, and for the fight against antimicrobial resistance.
WHO preferred product characteristics (PPCs) provide strategic guidance as to WHO’s preferences for new vacci...nes in priority disease areas. PPCs are intended to encourage innovation and development of vaccines for use in settings most relevant to the global unmet public health need.
Gonococcal vaccine PPCs describe global public health goals for gonococcal vaccines and preferred parameters pertaining to vaccine indications and target populations, safety and efficacy considerations, and immunization strategies.
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2nd edition. The purpose of the WHO human health risk assessment toolkit: chemical hazards is to provide its users with guidance to identify, acquire and use the information needed to assess chemical hazards, exposures and the corresponding health risks in their given health risk assessment contexts... at local and/or national levels.
The Toolkit provides road maps for conducting a human health risk assessment, identifies information that must be gathered to complete an assessment and provides electronic links to international resources from which the user can obtain information and methods essential for conducting the human health risk assessment
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Interim guidance, 26 October 2021
This interim guidance has been developed on the basis of the advice issued by the Strategic Advisory Group of Experts (SAGE) on Immunization at its meeting on 5 October 2021.
SAGE said moderately and severely immunocompromised persons should be offered an addition...al dose of all WHO approved vaccines “since these individuals are less likely to respond adequately to vaccination following a standard primary vaccine series and are at high risk of severe COVID-19 disease.”
People aged 60 and older who received the Sinovac and Sinopharm vaccines should get a third dose too, the experts added, though use of other vaccines may also be considered depending on supply and access.
“When implementing this recommendation, countries should initially aim at maximizing 2-dose coverage in that population, and thereafter administer the third dose, starting in the oldest age groups”, they said.
SAGE has also reviewed a vaccine developed by Indian company Bharat Biotech and will issue a policy recommendation after WHO greenlights it for emergency use.
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Health, safety and wellbeing of the Healthcare workers is a prerequisite for good quality of care and patient satisfaction in health services. Healthcare facilities that are not safe for workers and patients are not resilient to any shock arising from hostile events, outbreaks or any other emergenci...es. Occupational Safety and Health Act (2005) and the National Occupational Safety and Health Policy of Zanzibar require the development of stringent systems for managing occupational safety and health in all workplaces and the health system in general.
These Policy Guidelines have been developed by the Ministry of Health in consultation with the Ministry responsible for Labour and other stakeholders, such as organizations of workers, employers and professional associations in the health sector. The purpose of these guidelines is to foster the implementation of the international commitments and the national legislation regarding decent work in the health system as well as to improve the quality of care and the resilience of health facilities.
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English Analysis on World and 3 other countries about Agriculture, Climate Change and Environment, Drought, Flood and more; published on 22 Oct 2021 by Action Against Hunger
Tracking progress on food and agriculture-related SDG indicators 2021 -
Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations