Meeting Report
27–30 June 2017 Manila, Philippines
Asia-Pacific Disaster Report 2017
The report looks at the extent and impact of natural disasters across the region and how these intersect with poverty, inequality and the effects of violent conflict. But it also shows how scientific and other advances have increased the potential for building di...saster resilience and ensuring that even in the most extreme circumstances people can survive disaster impacts and rebuild their communities and livelihoods.
Disaster resilience is a key element of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. The Sustainable Development Goals are based on the premise of reaching absolutely everyone. When the drought is assessed, when the flood warnings are broadcast, when the tsunami siren sounds, the aim is to ‘leave no one behind’.
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An interagency guidance note on working with communities in high density settings to plan local approaches to preventing and managing COVID-19. This guidance note is intended for anyone involved in COVID-19 risk communication and community engagement (RCCE) efforts in complex and fragile settings in... Africa.
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The study on health facility preparedness for cholera outbreak response in Cameroon evaluates the ability of healthcare facilities in four cholera-prone districts to manage cholera outbreaks. The findings highlight significant weaknesses, including limited surveillance systems, inadequate access to ...water, poor sanitation, and lack of essential medical supplies such as Oral Rehydration Solution (ORS) and cholera case management guidelines. Many health facilities also lacked trained personnel and proper waste disposal systems, increasing the risk of disease spread within healthcare centers. The study underscores the urgent need for improved hygiene infrastructure, better training, and resource allocation to enhance outbreak response and reduce cholera-related mortality.
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Recommendations for health care professionals – the experience from Latvia
Unhealthy diets and excess body weight are leading risk factors for death and disability in the WHO European Region. Addressing malnutrition in all its forms is essential to ensure health and well-being for all and, consequently, sustainable development. It requires coherent and innovative actions c...overing the entire food system and across other sectors to ensure access to a diversified, balanced and healthy diet for all.
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A rapid review of evidence on the managing the risk of disease emergence in the wildlife trade - World Animal Health Organization (OIE)
The toolbox contains guidance and tools (sample templates) for data collection in M&E of PSS programmes. The tools can be adapted to PSS programme, depending upon target group, activities and scope. These are tools that may be useful for your programme and many are drawn from existing PSS programme ...M&E tools, but they are not an exhaustive list. They can act as an inspiration and supplement to other existing tools.
The Toolbox is also available in word format for easy use and adaptation here:
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The Scientific Conceptual Framework for Land Degradation Neutrality (LDN) provides a scientific foundation for understanding, implementing and monitoring LDN. It has been designed to create a bridge between the vision and the practical implementation of LDN, by defining LDN in operational terms. The... conceptual framework is a product of the UNCCD Science-Policy Interface.
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PNAS 119 (8) e2113947119 | https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2113947119
Environmental exposure to active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) can have negative effects on the health of ecosystems and humans. While numerous studies have monitored APIs in rivers, these employ different analytical methods, m...easure different APIs, and have ignored many of the countries of the world. This makes it difficult to quantify the scale of the problem from a global perspective. Furthermore, comparison of the existing data, generated for different studies/regions/continents, is challenging due to the vast differences between the analytical methodologies employed. Here, we present a global-scale study of API pollution in 258 of the world’s rivers, representing the environmental influence of 471.4 million people across 137 geographic regions. Samples were obtained from 1,052 locations in 104 countries (representing all continents and 36 countries not previously studied for API contamination) and analyzed for 61 APIs. Highest cumulative API concentrations were observed in sub-Saharan Africa, south Asia, and South America. The most contaminated sites were in low- to middle-income countries and were associated with areas with poor wastewater and waste management infrastructure and pharmaceutical manufacturing. The most frequently detected APIs were carbamazepine, metformin, and caffeine (a compound also arising from lifestyle use), which were detected at over half of the sites monitored. Concentrations of at least one API at 25.7% of the sampling sites were greater than concentrations considered safe for aquatic organisms, or which are of concern in terms of selection for antimicrobial resistance. Therefore, pharmaceutical pollution poses a global threat to environmental and human health, as well as to delivery of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.
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This document is produced by the Humanitarian Country Team and the United Nations Resident
Coordinator’s Office in Mozambique, with the support of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of
Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). The projects reflected here support the national government. It covers... the
period from November 2018 to June 2019. The Plan has been revised in March 2019 to incorporate the
immediate response to needs arising from the impact of Cyclone Idai.
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This report presents findings from research conducted by Economist Impact to assess the health, demographic, social and economic impacts associated with different scenarios for financing the HIV epidemic across 13 selected countries in Sub-Saharan Africa. The sponsorship of UNAIDS towards this repor...t is gratefully acknowledged. However, the findings and ideas expressed herein represent those of Economist Impact. They do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of UNAIDS, nor do they engage the responsibility of UNAIDS.
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Objective: To identify gaps in national stroke guidelines that could be bridged to enhance the quality of stroke care services in low- and
middle-income countries.
Methods: We systematically searched medical databases and websites of medical societies and contacted international organizations.
Co...untry-specific guidelines on care and control of stroke in any language published from 2010 to 2020 were eligible for inclusion. We reviewed
each included guideline for coverage of four key components of stroke services (surveillance, prevention, acute care and rehabilitation).
We also assessed compliance with the eight Institute of Medicine standards for clinical practice guidelines, the ease of implementation of
guidelines and plans for dissemination to target audiences.
Findings: We reviewed 108 eligible guidelines from 47 countries, including four low-income, 24 middle-income and 19 high-income countries.
Globally, fewer of the guidelines covered primary stroke prevention compared with other components of care, with none recommending
surveillance. Guidelines on stroke in low- and middle-income countries fell short of the required standards for guideline development;
breadth of target audience; coverage of the four components of stroke services; and adaptation to socioeconomic context. Fewer low- and
middle-income country guidelines demonstrated transparency than those from high-income countries. Less than a quarter of guidelines
encompassed detailed implementation plans and socioeconomic considerations.
Conclusion: Guidelines on stroke in low- and middle-income countries need to be developed in conjunction with a wider category of
health-care providers and stakeholders, with a full spectrum of translatable, context-appropriate interventions.
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In spite of the work carried out by the EU institutions, the Member States, many cities and grassroot movements in Europe, the general public is still not engaging enough in air quality policy initiatives and the level of awareness and knowledge of the effects of poor air quality on health is often ...low.
HEAL, within its work with the EU urban air quality partnership has put together a toolkit on ‘Communicating on air quality and health – Inspiring practices, challenges and tips’, providing hands-on examples of how communication on air quality, the health links and (policy and behavioural) changes takes place, as an inspiration particularly for urban authorities wanting to communicate on clean air.
The Partnership on Air Quality was founded in 2016 with the main objective of improving air quality in cities and bringing the ‘healthy city’ higher on the local, national and EU agendas as part of the urban agenda.
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The Mapping Antimicrobial Resistance and Antimicrobial Use Partnership (MAAP) project has conducted a multi-year, multi-country study that provides stark insights on the under-reported depth of the antimicrobial resistance (AMR) crisis across Africa and lays out urgent policy recommendations to addr...ess the emergency.
MAAP reviewed 819,584 AMR records from 2016-2019, from 205 laboratories across Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Eswatini, Gabon, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. MAAP also reviewed data from 327 hospital and community pharmacies and 16 national-level AMC datasets.
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Results from the baseline study indicated that schoolgirls in the southwestern refugee settlement context lacked access to the menstrual hygiene knowledge and products required for them to manage their menstruation in a healthy and dignified manner. Although UNHCR mandates that all women and girls o...f reproductive age are to receive distributions of disposable sanitary pads, soap and underwear, 71% of the girls reported not having enough menstrual products, 65% reported not having enough soap and 59% reported not having enough underwear. 44% percent also reported that they didn’t have enough information about menstrual hygiene.
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