Every year, nearly 250 million people move across borders temporarily or permanently for a job opportunity, studying, to flee a crisis back home, or for other reasons. Another 750 million move for similar reasons within the borders of their countries. With the understanding that human mobility affec...ts public health, and health affects human mobility and migrants, for decades, IOM has been providing critical health services to women, children and men on the move, while standing by governments for technical and operational support as needed. In 2019, in lower-income settings and in complex emergencies, along the world’s most perilous migration routes, in the aftermath of natural disasters or in response to disease outbreaks, IOM’s health teams have provided hundreds of thousands with primary health-care consultations, mental health and psychosocial support, sexual and reproductive health care, pre-migration health services, and much more.
This year, more than ever before, as the world reels from the socioeconomic impact of COVID-19, we have experienced that health is a cross-cutting component of overall human development and well-being.
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BMJ Global Health, Vol.5 No. 12Spatial subdivision of the camp (‘sectoring’) was able to ‘flatten the curve’, reducing peak infection by up to 70% and delaying peak infection by up to several months. The use of face masks coupled with the efficient isolation of infected individuals reduced t...he overall incidence of infection, and sometimes averted epidemics altogether. These interventions must be implemented quickly in order to be maximally effective. Lockdowns had only small effects on COVID-19 dynamics.
Conclusions
Agent-based models are powerful tools for forecasting the spread of disease in spatially structured and heterogeneous populations. Our findings suggest that feasible interventions can slow the spread of COVID-19 in a refugee camp setting, and provide an evidence base for camp managers planning intervention strategies. Our model can be modified to study other closed populations at risk from COVID-19 or future epidemics.
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The WHO Labour Care Guide is a tool that aims to support good-quality, evidence-based, respectful care during labour and childbirth, irrespective of the setting or level of health care. This manual has been developed to help skilled health personnel to successfully use the WHO Labour Care Guide. The... manual will also be of interest to staff involved in training health care personnel, health-care facility managers, and implementers and managers of maternal and child health services.
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In Control imparts knowledge, provokes reflection and triggers curiosity. The first half of the book provides an overview of the organisations, principles, frameworks and themes that every professional deploying to health emergencies should be aware of. The second half of the book provides practical... advice to help professionals survive and thrive during their mission – from staying healthy, protecting oneself from cyber-attacks and coping with stress to building trust among the host community or dealing with language barriers and the press.
This handbook is free of charge and can be made available in small quantities as long as supply lasts. To order, please send this form to: incontrol-handbook@rki.de
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Ethical perspectives on a future vaccination program against COVID-19 in Germany
BMJ 2019;365:l1807 doi: 10.1136/bmj.l1807 (Published 8 May 2019)
8 January 2021
Sequencing enabled the world to rapidly identify SARS-CoV-2 and develop diagnostic tests and other tools for outbreak management. Continued genome sequencing supports the monitoring of the disease’s spread and evolution of the virus. Accelerated integration of genome sequencing int...o the practices of the global health community is required if we want to be better prepared for the future threats. This document provides guidance for laboratories on maximizing the impact of SARS-CoV-2 sequencing now and other emerging pathogens in the future.
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This guide provides an overview of the major elements that must be considered before, during and after the implementation of antigen-detecting rapid diagnostic tests (Ag-RDTs) for SARS-CoV-2. This guide is complementary to policy guidance issued by the World Health Organization (WHO). The guide may ...appeal to a range of audiences including Ministries of Health, donors, public and private organizations/agencies acting as implementing partners and community based and civil society organizations with experience working on health, especially organizations familiar with similar testing campaigns for other disease programmes like HIV and malaria
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Healthy maternal nutrition, exclusive breastfeeding, and optimal infant and young child nutrition are critical for appropriate growth and development, as well as reducing the risk of developing noncommunicable diseases (NCDs), for both mothers and children. On 7–8 November 2018 the WHO Regional Of...fice for Europe convened an international conference of key stakeholders to discuss good practices and share experiences on these important issues.
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This paper provides case studies of several food product improvement policies from across the WHO European Region. The aim is to share country experience, assess the various merits of the different approaches, discuss lessons learned, and provide guidance for best practice that may be more widely ap...plicable across the European Region.
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A workshop of “first mover” countries to exchange experience and identify wider policy implications for the WHO European Region
The World Health Organization (WHO) European Region continues to be severely affected by diet-related noncommunicable diseases (NCDs), obesity and, in some countries, ...micronutrient deficiencies.
In order to drive further progress on improving dietary intake and food product improvement, the WHO Regional Office for Europe, Public Health England and the Royal Institute of International Affairs (Chatham House) co-convened a workshop of “first mover” countries in March 2019.
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14 January 2021
This practical guide can be used to help countries monitor and analyse the impact of COVID-19 on essential health services to inform planning and decision-making. It provides practical recommendations on how to use key performance indicators to analyse changes in access to and deliv...ery of essential health services within the context of the COVID-19 pandemic; how to visualize and interpret these data; and how to use the findings to guide modifications for safe delivery of services and transitioning towards restoration and recovery. The guide focuses on existing indicators and data that are captured in routine reporting systems and how they can be used by national and subnational authorities to understand specific contexts, challenges and bottlenecks. This guide supports Maintaining essential health services: operational guidance for the COVID-19 context, which provides an integrated framework to guide countries in their efforts to reorganize, adapt and maintain safe delivery of high-priority essential health services within the context of the pandemic.
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In order to help Member States understand what commercial foods for infants and young children are currently on the market, and to support implementation of the Guidance on ending inappropriate promotion of foods for infants and young children at the European level, the WHO Regional Office for Europ...e developed a methodology for identifying commercial baby foods available in retail settings and collecting data on their nutritional content, as well as various aspects of their packaging, labelling and promotion.
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The WHO European Office for the Prevention and Control of Noncommunicable Diseases organized an expert meeting on monitoring of digital marketing of unhealthy products to children and adolescents in June 2018. Based on that meeting, this report aims to provide a tool to support Member States in moni...toring digital marketing of unhealthy products to children; the resulting tool – the so-called CLICK monitoring framework – is flexible and can be adapted to national context. The report also describes current digital marketing strategies, the challenges arising from current practices, and some policy options to tackle digital marketing to children and adolescents.
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The WHO Regional Office for Europe has established the Childhood Obesity Surveillance Initiative in more than half the countries in the Region for routine monitoring of the policy response to the emerging obesity epidemic. The aim of the Initiative is to measure trends in overweight and obesity in c...hildren aged 6.0–9.9 years to get a clear understanding of the epidemic and to allow inter-country comparisons. This document outlines the common protocol agreed for use in the Initiative.
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Report of an intensive legal training and capacity-building workshop on law and noncommunicable diseases (Moscow, 30 May–3 June 2016)
The report summarizes important issues, themes and topics discussed during the meeting in Moscow, ranging from the design and implementation of legislation, reconc...iling public health objectives with international trade and investment law commitments, to examples of regional integration, such as the European Union and the Eurasian Economic Union.
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Guidance for addressing a global infodemic and fostering demand for immunization
December 2020
Misinformation threatens the success of vaccination programs across the world. This guide aims to help organizations to address the global infodemic through the development of strategic and well-coordina...ted national action plans to rapidly counter vaccine misinformation and build demand for vaccination that are informed by social listening.
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ASLM in collaboration with the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, and in partnership with the Clinton Health Access Initiative, Amref and Last Mile Health present the Quality Assurance Framework for SARS-CoV-2 Antigen Rapid Testing for Diagnosis of COVID-19. This framework aims to pr...ovide general technical guidance to African Union Members States on the rollout, establishment, implementation, monitoring, and evaluation of SARS-CoV-2 Ag RDT interventions so as to effectively and efficiently detect, control and minimise errors in the performance of COVID-19 laboratory testing processes. It describes the core components for quality assurance, resources mobilisation and advocacy for scale up, monitoring, evaluation, learning and accountability for SARS-CoV-2 implementation.
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In fragile, conflict-affected and vulnerable settings, delivery of quality health services faces significant challenges, including disruption of a routine health service organization and delivery systems, increased health needs, complex and unpredictable resourcing issues, and vulnerability to multi...ple public health crises. Despite the difficulty of addressing quality in such settings, the necessity for action is acute, given the significant health needs of the populations in these environments and the increasing numbers of people for whom such settings are home.
This manual has been developed to provide a starting point for multi-actor efforts and actions to address quality of care in the most challenging settings. This includes practical approaches to action planning and implementation of a contextualised set of quality interventions.
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Mobile vaccination teams visiting long-term care homes will have an important role in providing vaccination coverage for some of the most vulnerable population sub-groups. However, based on the experiences of German mobile diagnostic teams during the first COVID-19 pandemic w...ave, the deployment of mobile vaccination teams to care homes for older adults and people with disabilities is expected to raise various ethical challenges.
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