The report aims to capture lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic and to highlight the opportunity for more ambitious global action: expanding sustainable access to vaccines for all towards the Immunization Agenda 2030 and pandemic prevention, preparedness and response efforts. The report is organized i...n two sections: the first section provides WHO insights on global vaccine market dynamics, drawing from data provided by Member States, which are, in turn, analysed and displayed in the second section.
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The World health statistics report is the annual compilation of health and health-related indicators which has been published by the World Health Organization (WHO) since 2005. The 2023 edition reviews more than 50 health-related indicators from the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and WHO’s T...hirteenth General Programme of Work (GPW 13).
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Safe drinking-water management must consider drinking-water quality, acceptability and quantity in the context of public health protection. In this manual, the term “safety” encompasses these three elements. Although the principles in this manual can be broadly applied to all types of drinking-w...ater supplies, the guidance is primarily intended for piped water supplies that are professionally managed (by a water supplier or equivalent management entity).The guidance may be applied to existing drinking-water supplies, or adapted for water supplies that are in the planning stage before construction.
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This publication describes the first WHO public-benefit Target Product Profiles (TPPs) for snakebite antivenoms. It focuses on antivenoms for treatment of snakebite envenoming in sub-Saharan Africa. Four TPPs are described in the document:
Broad spectrum Pan-African polyvalent antivenoms: products ...that are intended for widespread utility throughout sub-Saharan Africa for treatment of envenoming irrespective of the species of snake causing a bite. Monovalent antivenoms for specific use cases: for products for a single species (or genus) of snake (e.g., boomslangs or carpet viper antivenoms).
Syndromic Pan-African polyvalent antivenoms for neurotoxic envenoming: products that are intended for treatment of envenoming by species whose venoms are neurotoxic. Syndromic Pan-African polyvalent antivenoms for non-neurotoxic envenoming: products for snakebite envenoming where the effects are largely haemorrhagic, necrotic or procoagulant.
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The WHO Disability-Inclusive Health Services Training Package is a companion to the “WHO Disability-Inclusive Health Services Toolkit: A resource for health facilities in the Western Pacific Region” published by WHO in 2020. This package offers a range of additional training materials including ...presentations, workbooks and videos that will allow users to develop the foundational skills and understanding of the Toolkit for its implementation. Together the Toolkit and Training Package will help ensure equitable access to health services, best-quality outcomes and improved quality of life for all people with disabilities to achieve universal health coverage.
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The Quadripartite organizations have developed the One Health Priority Research Agenda for AMR report, this is a joint initiative to assist in directing and catalysing scientific interest and financial investments for the priority research agenda across sectors for countries and funding bodies. The ...research agenda also serves as a guide to mitigate One Health AMR that will help policymakers, researchers, and a multidisciplinary scientific community work together on solutions to prevent and mitigate AMR within the One Health approach.
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his publication provides an overview of social inequalities in several indicators related to the health of women, children, and adolescents in a region deemed as one with high levels of inequality: Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC). In order for it to serve as a baseline for the 2030 Agenda, emp...hasis is placed on examining these inequalities around the year 2014. The analysis suggests that reducing within-country disparities is a priority, as widespread social inequalities in health are identified among LAC countries.
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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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The report summarizes the estimates of the burden of disease attributable to unsafe drinking water, sanitation, and hygiene for the year 2019 for four health outcomes - diarrhoea, acute respiratory infections, soil-transmitted helminthiases, and undernutrition - which are included in the reporting o...f the Sustainable Development Goal indicator 3.9.2. The report includes estimates at global, regional and country level for 183 WHO Member States.
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The greatest risk to persons engaging in international medical emergency response is poor preparation.
The In Control handbook hopes to provide a remedy.
At the time of writing, we are living through the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, a health emergency that disregards physical borders, brin...gs into focus social inequalities and affects people on every continent. This shared challenge requires unprecedented measures and the collaboration of the brightest minds to support global health protection through this crisis and beyond. Healthcare infrastructures have to be strengthened, public health capacities and processes upgraded, medical countermeasures and vaccinations found and psychosocial side-effects treated.
Solidarity is the normative order of the day and the human species has to collaborate to face this invisible threat. Hiding and living in fear is not an option in this interconnected world. We have both a responsibility and an opportunity to make substantial contributions to a safer, healthier and more sustainable future for us all.
The existence of this handbook is an impressive example of solidarity. Over 50 authors from more than 15 institutes and organisations have come together voluntarily within a very short time to make their expertise available and enable cross-sectoral thinking. Knowledge is bundled, resources are combined, information gaps are filled. The In Control handbook is not a theoretical treatise of possible dangers, but a collection of subject-matter expertise, written by experts and practitioners who have shaped health topics over the past 20 years in the most diverse corners of the world.
The Centre for International Health Protection at the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) is collaborating with its partners and investing heavily in the build-up of operational know-how and capacity to support health crisis response abroad. This is done by preparing and enabling professionals to deploy safely across the world to assist those in need. In Control addresses the multi-faceted challenges of an international deployment. Readers will find not only technical medical information, but also insights into, for example, the fragility of our environment, the cultural differences that influence risk communication or the dilemmas arising from social distancing. Legal principles are highlighted, along with ethical guidance to ensure that our actions and decisions correspond to the highest moral standards.
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CATALYST DIALOGUE ON HEALTH FINANCING
Insights from a debate on how to increase funding for health and spend existing funds more effectively.
Catalyst Dialogue participants:
Christoph Benn, Director for Global Health Diplomacy, Joep Lange Institute • Jayati Ghosh, Professor of Economics, Univer...sity of Massachusetts at Amherst • Tom Hart, Research Fellow, ODI • Lesley-Anne Long, President & CEO, Global Business Coalition for Health • Riaz Tanoli, CEO, Social Health Protection Initiative, Health Department Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan
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In sum, the goal is to understand the need to increase fiscal space for health as a prerequisite, but within the framework of efforts to transform the health system. These changes should foster equitable and efficient expenditures and create or strengthen comprehensive integrated health systems with... a first level of care capable of solving health problems and coordinating networks, based on a primary health care approach that offers not only curative care but also health promotion and disease prevention services.
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The 2021 Global monitoring report on financial protection in health shows that before the COVID-19 pandemic, the world was off-track to reduce financial hardship due to health expenditures because trends in catastrophic health spending were going in the wrong direction and the number of people incur...ring impoverishing health spending remained unacceptably high (Chapter 1). Chapter 2 summarizes emerging evidence on the consequence of the pandemic and the related macroeconomic and fiscal crisis that points to the likely worsening of financial protection for households, particularly as a result of declining income and consumption, along with rising poverty and inequality
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This report analyses the intersection of HIV, COVID-19 and public debt in developing countries. The collision between COVID-19 and a crippling debt crisis have reversed decades of progress - putting present and future investments in health and HIV at risk. Pragmatic options to address the pandemic t...riad are proposed.
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Follow up to the so called Abuja Declaration ten years later: In April 2001, heads of state of African Union countries met and pledged to set a target of allocating at least 15% of their annual budget to improve the health sector. At the same time, they urged donor countries to "fulfil the yet to be... met target of 0.7% of their GNP as official Development Assistance (ODA) to developing countries". This drew attention to the shortage of resources necessary to improve health in low income settings.
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The thirty-seventh meeting of the Programme, Budget and Administration Committee was held in Geneva from 25 to 27 January 2023 and chaired by Ms Aishath Rishmee (Maldives). The Committee adopted its agenda and agreed its programme of work. In his opening remarks, the Director-General emphasized the ...crucial work on the financial future of the Organization, most significantly implementation of the Programme budget 2022−2023 and development of the Proposed programme budget 2024−2025, which would be the first to benefit from the agreed increase in assessed contributions. He welcomed the work of the Agile Member States Task Group on Strengthening WHO’s Budgetary, Programmatic and Financing Governance with its recommendations for long-term improvements in reform, prevention of and response to sexual abuse and harassment, new web-based information portals and a new replenishment process for consideration by Member States. Efforts were also under way to improve impact at country level, and he would continue to report to Member States on progress. He was heading an agile, proactive and fast-responding WHO, committed to implementing plans approved by Member States.
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We combine data on Chinese development projects with data from Demographic and Health Surveys to study the impact of Chinese aid on household welfare in sub-Saharan Africa. We use a novel methodology to test the effect of Chinese aid on three important development outcomes: education, health, and nu...trition. For each outcome, we use difference-in-difference estimations to compare household areas near Chinese project sites to control areas located farther away, before and after receiving Chinese aid. This empirical strategy rules out many confounding factors that can bias measuring the impact of Chinese aid on our outcome variables. First, we find that Chinese projects significantly improve education and child mortality in treatment areas, but do not significantly affect nutrition. Second, social sector projects have a larger effect on outcomes than economic projects. Third, we do not find significant effects for projects that ended more than five years before the post-treatment survey wave. Our results are robust to a host of robustness checks.
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Over the 20 years that followed, this unique partnership has invested more than US$53 billion, saving 44 million lives and reducing the combined death rate from the three diseases by more than half in the countries in which the Global Fund invests.
Ebola disease and Marburg disease outbreaks continue to occur in Africa, with increased frequency. In addition to resulting in high mortality and morbidity, the outbreaks generate fear and mistrust about the response activities within the communities affected.
Infection prevention and control (IP...C) is a key pillar in the outbreak response; adherence to IPC practices can prevent and control transmission of infections to health and care workers, patients and their family members.
During the 2014-2016 West African Ebola disease outbreak, there was an urgent need for rapid IPC guidance to help support ministries of health, health-care providers and non-governmental organizations (NGOs). In response, WHO produced several documents related to the outbreak based on expert opinion, including IPC-specific documents and documents on clinical management that also referenced key IPC principles and practices. Since that time, many practices in the field have become institutionalized.
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The Infection prevention and control in the context of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19): a living guideline consolidates technical guidance developed and published during the COVID-19 pandemic into evidence-informed recommendations for infection prevention and control (IPC). This living guideline... is available both online and PDF.
**This version of the living guideline (version 5.0) **includes the following seven revised statements for the prevention, identification and management of SARS-CoV-2 infections among health and care workers:
a good practice statement on national and subnational testing strategies;
a good practice statement on passive syndromic surveillance of health and care workers;
a good practice statement on prioritizing health and care workers for SARS-CoV-2 testing;
a good practice statement on protocols for reporting and managing health and care worker exposures;
a good practice statement to limit in-person work of health and care workers with active SARS-CoV-2 infections;
a statement on high-risk exposures and quarantine; and,
a conditional recommendation on the duration of isolation for health and care workers.
Understanding the updated section
Prevention of infections in the health care setting includes a multi-pronged and multi-factorial approach that includes IPC and occupational health and safety measures and adherence to Public Health and Social Measures in the community by the health workforce. The underlying infection prevention and control strategy of this section is the notion that early identification of symptomatic cases, testing and quarantining/isolating health and care workers decreases the risk of nosocomial infection to patients and to other health and care workers.
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