This report is the first of its kind. It brings together various data sets to present the current status of hand hygiene, highlight lagging progress, and call governments and supporting agencies to action, offering numerous inspiring examples of change.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, hand hygiene ...received unprecedented attention and became a central pillar in national COVID prevention strategies. However, concern with hand hygiene should not only be as temporary public health measure in times of crisis, but as a vital everyday behaviour that contributes to health and economic resilience. Hand hygiene is a highly cost-effective investment, providing outsized health benefits for relatively little cost.
Despite efforts to promote hand hygiene, the rates of access to hand hygiene facilities remain stubbornly low. If current rates of progress continue, by the end of the SDG era in 2030, 1.9 billion people will still lack facilities to wash their hands at home.
This report presents a compelling case for investment in five key ‘accelerators’ as a pathway towards achieving hand hygiene for all – governance, financing, capacity development, data and information, and innovation. These accelerators are identified under the UN-Water SDG 6 Global Acceleration Framework.
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These WHO interim recommendations for use of the BBV152 COVAXIN vaccine were developed on the basis of advice issued by the Strategic Advisory Group of Experts on Immunization (SAGE) and the evidence summary included in the background document and annexes referenced below.
This document has been ...updated: version 15 March 2022.
The vaccine is formulated from an inactivated SARS-CoV-2 antigen and is presented in single dose vials and multidose vials of 5, 10 and 20 doses.
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Healthy communities rely on well-functioning ecosystems. They provide clean air, fresh water, medicines and food security. They also limit disease and stabilize the climate. But biodiversity loss is happening at unprecedented rates, impacting human health worldwide, according to a new state of knowl...edge review of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and WHO.
The report synthesizes the available information on the most important inter-linkages between biodiversity, ecosystem stability, and epidemic infectious diseases such as the Ebola virus; and the connection between biodiversity, nutritional diversity and health. It also covers the potential benefits of closer partnerships between conservation and health, from improved surveillance of infectious diseases in wildlife and human populations, to promoting access to green spaces to promote physical activity and mental health. It also highlights the many areas in which further research is needed.
The Joint report hopes to provide a useful reference for the Sustainable Development Goals and post-2015 development agenda, which represents an unique opportunity to promote integrated approaches to biodiversity and health by highlighting that biodiversity contributes to human well-being, and highlighting that biodiversity needs protection for development to be sustainable.
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At a time when the world is reeling from the deepest global disruption and health crisis of a lifetime, this year’s Living Planet
report provides unequivocal and alarming evidence that nature is unraveling and that our planet is flashing red warning signs of
vital natural systems failure. The ...Living Planet Report 2020 clearly outlines how humanity’s increasing destruction of nature is having
catastrophic impacts not only on wildlife populations but also on human health and all aspects of our lives.
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This report aims to support countries in the necessary transition toward healthier, more sustainable diets by integrating biodiversity in food-based interventions to support nutrition and health. It is intended to help guide decision-makers in the health, nutrition and other sectors, to:
Consider... the important role of biodiversity in food systems for the development of integrated interventions to support healthy, diverse and sustainable diets;
To focus investments and country support for more comprehensive, coordinated and cross-cutting public health and nutrition projects and policies; and
To strengthen the resilience of food systems, health systems, and societies, each of which are each increasingly compromised by widespread ecological degradation, biodiversity loss and climate change.
Biodiversity at every level (genetic, species and ecosystem level) is a foundational pillar for food security, nutrition, and dietary quality. It is the basic source of variety in essential foods, nutrients, vitamins and minerals, and medicines, and underpins life-sustaining ecosystem services. It is a core environmental determinant of health, often a vital ingredient of healthy nutritional outcomes and livelihoods, gender equality, social equity, and other health determinants.
Biodiversity can play a more prominent role in planning for nutritional outcomes in various ways, e.g. by facilitating the production of nutritious fruits and plant products, sustaining livelihoods through more efficient production and increasing the diversity of products available in markets. This Guidance presents and expands on six core building blocks for mainstreaming biodiversity for nutrition and health:
Cross-sectoral knowledge development and knowledge co-production;
Enabling environments;
Integration;
Conservation and the wider use of biodiversity;
Education and awareness-raising;
Monitoring and evaluation;
This WHO report builds on an unprecedented opportunity to mainstream biodiversity in order to support healthy and sustainable diets, and offers the necessary technical guidance to catalyze and support a transformation of the global food system and transition to healthier, more sustainable diets.
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Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B (2010) 365, 2959–2971; doi:10.1098/rstb.2010.0143.
Agricultural ecosystems provide humans with food, forage, bioenergy and pharmaceuticals and are essential to human wellbeing. These systems rely on ecosystem services provided by natural ecosystems, including pollination, b...iological pest control, maintenance of soil structure and fertility, nutrient cycling and hydrological services. Preliminary assessments indicate that the value of these ecosystem services to agriculture is enormous and often underappreciated. Agroecosystems also produce a variety of ecosystem services, such as regulation of soil and water quality, carbon sequestration, support for biodiversity and cultural services. Depending on management practices, agriculture can also be the source of numerous disservices, including loss of wildlife habitat, nutrient runoff, sedimentation of waterways, greenhouse gas emissions, and pesticide poisoning of humans and non-target species. The tradeoffs that may occur between provisioning services and other ecosystem services and disservices should be evaluated in terms of spatial scale, temporal scale and reversibility. As more effective methods for valuing ecosystem services become available, the potential for ‘win–win’ scenarios increases. Under all scenarios, appropriate agricultural management practices are critical to realizing the benefits of ecosystem services and reducing disservices from agricultural activities.
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The European Resuscitation Council Guidelines for Resuscitation provide specific instructions for how resuscitation should be practiced and take into account ease of teaching and learning, as well as the science. They were developed by Europeans and have been specifically written with European pract...ice in mind.
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Food environments are usually defined as the settings with all the different types of
food made available and accessible to people as they go about their daily lives.
That is, the range of food in supermarkets, small retail outlets, wet markets, street
food stalls, coffee shops, tea houses, s...chool canteens, restaurants, and all the other
venues where people buy and eat food. These environments differ enormously depending on the context. They can be extensive and diverse, with a seemingly endless array of options and price ranges, or they can be sparse, with very few options on offer. Because they determine what food consumers can access at a given moment in time, at what price, and with what degree of convenience, food environments both constrain and prompt the consumer’s choice.Food environments are influenced by the food systems which supply them, and vice versa. Food systems encompass the entire range of activities, people and institutions involved in the production, processing,
marketing, consumption and disposal of food (FAO, 2013). They include but are not limited to food supply chains. Making food systems nutrition-sensitive can contribute to addressing all forms of malnutrition, as food systems determine whether the food needed for good nutrition are available, affordable, acceptable and of adequate
quantity and quality. How closely food systems and food environments are interrelated and interdependent, and the degree to which external factors affect nutrition outcomes, varies from setting to setting.Many of today’s food systems
and food environments are challenged in supporting consumer choices that are
consistent with healthy diets and good nutrition. Consumers are not making choices based on nutrition and health, and poor diet is now the number one risk factor for death and disability worldwide (GBD, 2015). Food systems that do not enable healthy diets are increasingly recognized as an underlying cause of malnutrition (GLOPAN, 2016), and malnutrition, irrespective of form, has a huge cost. Economic costs associated with undernutrition are estimated at $1-2 trillion per year, about 2-3% of global GDP (FAO, 2013); the global economic cost of obesity and associated diet-related non-communicable diseases is estimated at $2 trillion per year, about 2.8% of global GDP (McKinsey, 2014). Influencing food environments for promoting healthy diets is an emerging strategy to address today’s nutrition challenges.
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The COVID-19 pandemic arrived in an evolving epidemiological context where some countries are experiencing a progressive decrease in HIV positivity in their testing programme as they are moving closer to the first 95 target. Distinguishing changes in HIV testing services due to the COVID-19 pandemic... from those resulting from evolving HIV testing strategies is crucial for adapting services and helping countries define their strategic mix of testing options moving forward. There is a need to focus, prioritize and plan for strategic efforts to prevent going further off the track toward achieving global targets and goals.
To support these efforts, WHO in partnership with ministries of health conducted an in-depth analysis of HIV testing services and antiretroviral therapy (ART) initiation prior to and during reported COVID-19 disruptions. Additional publicly available Global Fund and PEPFAR data was also reviewed and analysed. This analysis, and coordination with ministries of health, identified key service delivery adaptations utilized during COVID-19-related disruptions and formed the basis of this strategic guide.
This document focuses on current country needs, as well as plans for prioritization and potential surge support needs in the event of future disruptions. Although the data and implications are specific to sub-Saharan Africa, key principles and lessons can be applied elsewhere.
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For humanitarian organisations to respond effectively to complex crises, they require access to up-to-date evidence-based guidance. The COVID-19 crisis has highlighted the importance of updating global guidance to context-specific and evolving needs in humanitarian settings. Our study aimed to under...stand the use of evidence-based guidance in humanitarian responses during COVID-19. Primary data collected during the rapidly evolving pandemic sheds new light on evidence-use processes in humanitarian response.
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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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This version of the glossary is substantially changed from the original. Some terms have been omitted, many have been modified in light of practical experiences and the evolution in concepts, and new terms have been added. The list of terms is not intended to be either exhaustive or exclusive, and d...raws upon the wide range of disciplines in which health promotion has its roots. Wherever possible, definitions are sourced or derived from existing, publicly accessible WHO documents. Specific sources are referenced, and where possible a web link is also provided to facilitate access to source documents. Hyperlinks were correct at the time of publication but are subject 2 Health Promotion Glossary of Terms 2021 to inevitable change. In some examples the definitions have been adapted to reflect the application of a term to the current health promotion context. Where relevant, this focus is acknowledged in individual definitions.
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The WHO End TB Strategy aims to end the global TB epidemic by 2030, in alignment with Goal 3 of the United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Member States of the World Health Organization (WHO) and the UN committed to ending the TB epidemic through adoption of WHO’s End TB Strateg...y and the UN SDGs in 2014 and 2015, respectivel
Almost half of the deaths worldwide caused by TB in 2019 occurred in the WHO South-East Asia Region, home to around a quarter of the global population. Maintaining robust progress in this Region is therefore essential if the global goal of ending the TB epidemic is to be realized. Despite substantial gains made in the Region, the threat to
health worldwide posed by the COVID-19 pandemic has the potential to reverse these gains and eclipse the focus on the global TB emergency.
While continuing to tackle COVID-19-related challenges, countries will need to rapidly and urgently deploy supplementary measures to address the large numbers of missed cases, poor treatment outcomes and, potentially, a higher TB burden.
The Regional Strategic Plan towards Ending TB in the Region 2021–2025 clearly articulates priority interventions, analyses the challenges, bottlenecks and opportunities, and focuses on implementation considerations in the Region.
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