A quick reference guide for health authorities and health-care workers
Revised 2015
Regional action plan 2019-2023
Communities in snakebite endemic countries need to be properly educated on what to do in the event of a snakebite and what steps to take to lessen one from happening. These comprehensive prevention videos in multiple languages are resources YOU can share with school children, agricultural workers, h...omemakers. Help spread these important videos right on down to the people and regions affected.
Minutes to Die released snakebite prevention videos in 12 languages made for sharing and aimed at community health workers in Africa and India, produced by the Lillian Lincoln Foundation, along with the WHO, MSF, and a host of other NGOs.
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The number of COVID-19 cases is on the rise again, with South Africa nearing half of all confirmed cases in the WHO African Region. Threats of new variants loom and low vaccination coverage raises questions on the future of the response to COVID-19. Prevention remains the key strategy in most sub-Sa...haran countries. Five National Centres (NCs) from the African Health Observatory Platform on Health Systems and Policies (AHOP), based in Ethiopia, Kenya, Nigeria, Rwanda and Senegal, reflect on lessons to be learnt from their containment responses in the initial phases. They construct timelines to highlight the policies and challenges associated with introducing a range of public health containment measures and
discuss the extent to which these measures continue to be valuable given the ever-changing nature of the pandemic.
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Monkeypox virus is an orthopoxvirus that causes human monkeypox, a viral disease with symptoms similar to smallpox, including fever and rash. Following the worldwide eradication of smallpox in 1980, monkeypox emerged as the most significant orthopoxvirus infection in humans. Cases are most often rep...orted from rural areas of Central and West African countries, particularly in regions close to tropical rainforest where people may have contact with infected animals. Someone can become infected through direct contact with respiratory droplets of another person who has monkeypox in the home or in a health facility, or with contaminated materials such as bedding. Although these are the main modes of person-to-person transmission, monkeypox outbreaks tend to occur in small clusters of a few cases without leading to widespread community transmission. For this reason, outbreaks can be easily controlled when responded to rapidly. On several occasions, monkeypox has been reported in other regions due to importation by travelers or infected animals. This course provides a general introduction to the disease through a video and accompanying downloadable presentation that can be reviewed at your own pace. It is intended for health personnel responsible for prevention and control of monkeypox, and for the general public.
The content and scope of this course on monkeypox have been tailored for outbreaks in African countries where the disease is endemic. The course material was last updated in 2020 and may not reflect most recent WHO guidance issued for the multi-country outbreak in 2022.
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The Greater Horn of Africa is experiencing one of the worst food insecurity situations in decades. It is estimated
that more than 37 million people are in Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC)1 phase 3 or above and approximately 7 million children under the age of five are acutely mal...nourished in the region. While finding food and safe water is the absolute priority, the health response is essential to avert preventable disease and death.
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جُدري القردة مرضٌ معدٍ مستجدٌ، يسبِّبه فيروس ينتقل إلى البشر من الحيوانات المصابة، التي تكون من القوارض في أغلب الأحيان. ويمكن أن تنتشر العدوى به إلى أشخاص آخرين، إ...ا أن انتقال العدوى من شخص إلى آخر لا يمكن أن يؤدي وحده بسهولة إلى حدوث فاشية. ولا تختلف المظاهر السريرية عن تلك التي شوهدت في الماضي مع الجدري، إلا أنها أقل وخامة. وقد تم استئصال الجدري في جميع أنحاء العالم في عام 1980، إلا أن جُدري القردة لا يزال يظهر بشكل متقطِّع في أجزاءٍ من وسط وغرب أفريقيا بالقرب من الغابات الاستوائية المطيرة. ويتراوح معدل إماتة الحالات في فاشيات جُدري القردة ما بين 1-10%، إلا أنه مع الرعاية الملائمة، يتعافى أغلب المرضى. وتوفر هذه الدورة التدريبية مقدمةً عامةً عن جُدري القردة، وهي موجهة إلى العاملين الصحيين المسؤولين عن الوقاية من مرض
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WHO needs US$2.54 billion to provide life-saving assistance to millions of people around the world facing health emergencies. WHO’s Health Emergency Appeal is a consolidation of WHO’s priorities and financial requirements for 2023 to carry out health interventions in emergency and humanitarian r...esponses. The number of people in need of humanitarian relief has increased by almost a quarter compared to 2022, to a record 339 million. WHO is responding to an unprecedented number of intersecting health emergencies: climate change-related disasters such as flooding in Pakistan and food insecurity across the Sahel in the greater Horn of Africa; the war in Ukraine; and the health impact of conflict in Yemen, Afghanistan, Syria and north eastern Ethiopia – all of these emergencies overlapping with the health system disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and outbreaks of measles, cholera, and other killers. Contributions to the appeal can be fully flexible, flexible across a region, or flexible within a country appeal.
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Visceral leishmaniasis is an important disease in East Africa where recurrent outbreaks occur. Leishmania-HIV coinfected people have high chance of developing the full-blown clinical disease, and high relapse and mortality rates. Poverty, malnutrition and population movements in endemic areas increa...se the risk of developing VL. Early diagnosis and effective prompt treatment reduce the prevalence of the disease and prevents disabilities and death. This course aims at providing health workers with the necessary knowledge to understand the epidemiology, diagnosis, treatment, surveillance and outbreak investigation of this important disease in East Africa.
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Promoting health and preventing disease is a critical component of the effort required to achieve Universal Health Coverage (UHC). to date, efforts to achieve UHC have focused mostly on strengthening health systems and their capacities to provide curative care. However, experience from the COVID-19 ...pandemic has reaffirmed the need for resilient health systems, emphasizing primary health care, including preventive and promotive health and well-being.
Emerging from the eye of the storm as the global health lead agency during the pandemic, WHO is equipped with the required insights and actions for a holistic approach to “building back fairer and better” after COVID-19.
The Healthier Populations (UHP) Cluster in the African Region is designed to support Pillar 3 of WHO’s 13th Global Programme of Work (GPW13) which aims to make 1 billion people healthier by reducing health inequities, preventing diseases and injuries, addressing health determinants, and promoting partnerships for collaborative actions amongst all stakeholders.
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While there has been real progress in addressing the burden of disease in the WHO African region, the COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the link between health, economics and security, as the region saw decades of progress threatened, including positive trends in decreasing inequality. In the Africa...n Region the momentum towards achieving the 2030 SDG disease burden reduction targets (SDG targets 3.3, 3.4 and 3B) has stalled.
The COVID-19 pandemic was also a major threat to gains made, such as the eradication of polio in the region, declared in 2020; reduced numbers of new HIV infections in 2021 compared to 2010; and passing the 2020 milestone of the End TB Strategy, with a 22% reduction in new cases compared with 2015. However, the pandemic also disrupted essential health services in 92% of countries globally, 22.7 million children missed basic immunization, there was an increase in malaria and TB, and global deaths from TB rose for the first time since 2015.
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Brazzaville – Africa is expected to experience the highest increase in diabetes globally. The number of people suffering from the disease is predicted to rise to 55 million by 2045—a 134% spike compared with 2021. At 70%, the continent also has the world’s highest number of people who do not k...now they have diabetes. Dr Bernadette Adeyileka-Tracz, Founder and Chief Operating Officer of Diabetes Africa, a non-profit organization working to improve the health of Africans living with diabetes, explains the challenges in diabetes prevention and care in the continent.
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This report includes analysis from informal regional consultations in the African Region, the Caribbean and North America, Latin America, South-East Asia Region, European Region, Eastern Mediterranean Region, alongside three forums in the Western Pacific Region. It analyses the overarching similarit...ies, regional nuances and priorities raised across the six WHO regions for the meaningful engagement of individuals with lived experience.
It is the second publication in the WHO Intention to action series, which aims to enhance the limited evidence base on the impact of meaningful engagement and address the lack of standardized approaches on how to operationalise meaningful engagement. The Intention to action series aims to do this by providing a platform from which individuals with lived experience, and organizational and institutional champions, can share solutions, challenges and promising practices related to this cross-cutting agenda. The Intention to action series also aims to provide powerful narratives, inspiration and evidence towards the Fourth United Nations High Level Meeting on NCDs in 2025 and achieving the 2030 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
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Non-Communicable Diseases (NCDs), including mental disorders, currently pose one of the biggest threats to health and development globally, particularly in low and middle income countries2. It is predicted that unless proven interventions are rapidly implemented in countries, in the short to medium ...term, health care costs will increase exponentially and severe negative consequences will ensue not only to individuals and families but to whole societies and economies. NCDs are already a major burden in South Africa, but without added rigorous and timely action the health and development consequences may well become catastrophic. Immediate and additional, high quality, evidence based and focussed interventions are needed to promote health, prevent disease and provide more effective and equitable care and treatment for people living with NCDs at all levels of the health system. The problem is further compounded by the rising global prevalence of multi-morbidity (defined as the coexistence of two or more chronic diseases in one individual).
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Human strongyloidiasis is a chronic parasitic disease caused by infection with Strongyloides stercoralis, a soil-transmitted helminth that is estimated to infect 300–600 million people worldwide. This neglected tropical disease (NTD) is endemic globally, predominately in the South-East Asia, Afric...an and Western Pacific regions, and in South and Central America. Strongyloidiasis has a wide range of clinical presentations, including subclinical disease, symptomatic disease (often with diarrhoea, abdominal pain and urticaria) and a rare but deadly complication of hyperinfection with disseminated disease. The feared complication of disseminated strongyloidiasis can occur in the setting of immunocompromising conditions (e.g. human T-cell lymphotropic virus type 1 infection and malignancies) or immunosuppressive medications (e.g. steroids) and has an estimated case-fatality rate exceeding 60%. The standard treatment for chronic S. stercoralis infection is oral medication with ivermectin.
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WHO Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has determined that the upsurge of mpox in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and a growing number of countries in Africa constitutes a public health emergency of international concern (PHEIC) under the International Health Regulations (2005...) (IHR). Dr Tedros’s declaration came on the advice of an IHR Emergency Committee of independent experts who met earlier in the day to review data presented by experts from WHO and affected countries. The Committee informed the Director-General that it considers the upsurge of mpox to be a PHEIC, with potential to spread further across countries in Africa and possibly outside the continent.
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