This document provides interim guidance on the management of the blood supply in response to the pandemic outbreak of coronavirus disease (COVID-19). It emphasizes the importance of being prepared and responding quickly and outlines key actions and measures that the blood services should take to mit...igate the potential risk to the safety and sufficiency of the blood supplies during the pandemic.
It should be read in conjunction with WHO Guidance for National Blood Services on Protecting the Blood Supply During Infectious Disease Outbreaks, which provides general guidance on the development of national plans to respond to any emerging infectious threats to the sufficiency or safety of the blood supply.
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This document provides interim guidance on the management of the blood supply in response to the pandemic outbreak of coronavirus disease (COVID-19). It emphasizes the importance of being prepared and responding quickly and outlines key actions and measures that the blood services should take to mit...igate the potential risk to the safety and sufficiency of the blood supplies during the pandemic.
It should be read in conjunction with WHO Guidance for National Blood Services on Protecting the Blood Supply During Infectious Disease Outbreaks, which provides general guidance on the development of national plans to respond to any emerging infectious threats to the sufficiency or safety of the blood supply.
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The global coronavirus pandemic, which has brought death to hundreds of thousands and serious illness to millions more, also poses profound spiritual questions and real challenges to Christians everywhere.
The pandemic itself has become a fundamental test of our faith in God and God’s providence,... and it urges us to earnest re-examination of our relationship to God, each other, and the natural world.
In Healing the World, the World Council of Churches offers these eight Bible studies to facilitate our coming to terms—as individuals, groups, and communities of faith—with the loss, fear, and confusion engendered by the pandemic, and the bracing prospect of building the world anew.
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13 May 2021
To avoid a reversal of progress from the adverse impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, new knowledge and lessons from successful programmatic innovations are urgently needed to improve TB prevention and care. Experience can provide evidence for innovative approaches and strategies to mainta...in and scale up high-quality TB services. WHO therefore called for case studies on programmatic innovations that address emerging challenges in TB prevention and care during the pandemic in order to collect and disseminate the findings to the TB community. Between November 2020 and February 2021, a total of 23 case studies relevant to the call were accepted from 19 countries in the six regions of WHO. The lessons learnt from these country activities to ensure the continuity of essential services like TB care in the face of the crippling crisis may also inform strategies for minimizing the impact of future emerging pathogens on health services.
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Almost half (46%) of the world’s 1.7 million children living with HIV were not on treatment in 2020 and 150 000 children were newly infected with HIV, four times more than the 2020 target of 40 000
New research exposes how women and children are disproportionally affected by climate migration, which puts them at greater risk of gender-based violence, child labour and exploitation.
Governments must ensure the safety and protection of women and girls in climate emergencies, including the safe... and equal access to basic services, food, and healthcare before, during, and after disasters. Women must also be included in decision making in their communities so they can lead on resilience building and address gendered issues of migration and displacement.
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Wound care is a regular component of the package of care we offer in the majority of our health care facilities and represents a high volume of activities. The current practices in MSF projects are often based on the habits of each individual supervisor, the wound care material we off...er is partly outdated and does not allow optimal wound care. There is a need for standardization of wound care and it needs to be evidence based as much as possible, taking into account the realities of the field.
The scope of this document is to guide the caregiver in the wound care process. It does not intend to provide in depth information on wound healing or physiology. There is a wide range of literature and background information available for this purpose in the references and in the list of extra reading
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Noma (cancrum oris) is a severe gangrenous disease of the mouth and face. It mostly affects children between the ages of 2 and 6 years living in extreme poverty. In addition to the known factors such as malnutrition, lack of vaccination in children and poor oral hygiene, several social and environme...ntal factors such as maternal malnutrition and close spacing of pregnancies that result in offspring with increasingly weakened immune systems are potentially related to the onset of the disease.
The aim of this guide is to assist the ministries of health (MoHs) to identify a general goal to be attained by the end of five years, with a view to sustainably reducing the incidence of noma as a public health problem through programmes that are fully integrated with national health planning, strengthening of primary health care (PHC) and attainment of UHC.
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This is a guidance document for countries and implementing partners on the technical requirements for developing digital information systems for issuing standards-based interoperable digital certificates for COVID-19 vaccination status, and considerations for implementation of such systems, for the ...purposes of continuity of care, and proof of vaccination.
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One of the most important ways we feel we can help to reduce the burden of cancer in Africa is to work with African cancer advocacy organisations to help educate and advocate about cancer in their countries. To this end in 2010 we designed with our partners, 13 posters for use in Africa
giving heal...th and lifestyle tips on how to avoid cancer and highlighting the early warning sign and symptoms of common cancers in Africa
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The second edition of the joint WHO, WIPO and WTO
publication “Promoting Access to Medical Technologies
and Innovation: Intersections between public health,
intellectual property and trade” (the Trilateral Study),*
published in 2020, included a special insert mappi...ng the
challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic in relation
to the integrated health, trade and IP policy framework set
out in the study. The Trilateral Study and the special insert
were designed to serve as background reference for policy-
makers in the widest sense – lawmakers, government
officials, delegates to international organizations, non-
governmental organizations (NGOs) and researchers
who seek a comprehensive presentation of the full range
of issues, including institutions and legal concepts with
which they may be unfamiliar. It is also designed to serve
as a factual resource for the three organizations’ technical
cooperation activities.
This update revises the information contained in that
insert in the light of more recent developments as of
30 August 2021. Further updates will be made to reflect
subsequent developments.
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24 Nov. 2021
Action against gender-based violence being pushed to the outlying margins of the global COVID-19 response
A new Oxfam report shows an undeniable increase in gender-based violence (GBV) during the COVID-19 pandemic around the world to which too many governments and donors are not doi...ng enough to tackle.
The report, The Ignored Pandemic: The Dual Crisis of Gender-Based Violence and COVID-19, showed the number of calls made by survivors to domestic violence hotlines in ten countries during the first months of lockdown. The data reveals a 25 – 111 percentage surge; in Argentina (25%), Colombia (79%), Tunisia (43%), China (50%), Somalia (50%), South Africa (69%), UK (25%), Cyprus (39%), Italy (73%) and the largest increase in Malaysia where calls surged by over 111%.
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The early prevention project “Strong together!” supports refugee parents and their young children (0–4 years) in Berlin, Germany. It aims to mitigate the transmission of trauma to the generation born in exile. For refugee families who have only recently arrived in Germany, the COVID‐19 pande...mic poses a particularly great challenge. Not only are they confronted with numerous challenges in respect to rebuilding their lives in Germany after fleeing war and persecution, but are also vulnerable to conscious and unconscious anxieties, fantasies, and conflicts evoked by the pandemic and the threat it poses to their lives. This was observed in the context of the mother–child groups of “Strong together!”
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Updated Treatment Guidelines
The Essential Nutrition Actions and Essential Hygiene Actions Training Guide: Community Workers strengthens the capacity of community workers to deliver and promote the essential nutrition and hygiene actions. It introduces technical content within hands-on sessions to practice counseling and negoti...ation, using role plays and field practice. It guides community workers in understanding why and how to integrate messages on nutrition and hygiene into their different program platforms using a life cycle approach to deliver the right message to right person at the right time.
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