This is the sixth of our 11-paper supplement entitled “Community Health Workers at the Dawn of New Era”. Expectations of community health workers (CHWs) have expanded in recent years to encompass a wider array
of services to numerous subpopulations, engage communities to collaborate with and to... assist health systems in responding to complex and sometimes intensive threats. In this paper, we explore a set of key considerations for training of CHWs in response to their enhanced and changing roles and provide actionable recommendations based on
current evidence and case examples for health systems leaders and other stakeholders to utilize.
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This publication is a companion document to the NDVP National Deployment and Vaccination Plans guidance, which provides a framework for countries to develop their national strategies. As countries face challenges with erratic vaccine supplies, use of multiple vaccine products with different charact...eristics, and the size of populations and their diversity, this document provides operational guidance and information to support planners and immunization programme managers at the national and sub-national levels on microplanning for COVID-19 vaccination implementation.
This Guide is available in English, French, Arabic, chinese, Portuguese, Spanish, Russian
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This study aimed to analyze the geographical distribution of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and to identify high-risk areas in space and time for the occurrence of cases and deaths in the indigenous population of Brazil. This is an ecological study carried out between 24 March and 26 October 20...20 whose units of analysis were the Special Indigenous Sanitary Districts. The Getis-Ord General G and Getis-Ord Gi* techniques were used to verify the spatial association of the phenomena and a retrospective space–time scan was performed. There were 32 041 confirmed cases of COVID-19 and 471 deaths. The non-randomness of cases (z score = 5.40; P < 0.001) and deaths (z score = 3.83; P < 0.001) were confirmed. Hotspots were identified for cases and deaths in the north and midwest regions of Brazil. Sixteen high-risk space–time clusters were identified for the occurrence of cases with a higher RR = 21.23 (P < 0.001) and four risk clusters for deaths with a higher RR = 80.33 (P < 0.001). These clusters were identified from 22 May and were active until 10 October 2020. The results indicate critical areas in the indigenous territories of Brazil and contribute to better directing the actions of control of COVID-19 in this population.
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Brazilian media and science communicators must understand the main characteristics of misinformation in social media about COVID-19, so that they can develop attractive, up-to-date and evidence-based content that helps to increase health literacy and counteract the spread of false information.
24 Nov. 2021; This guidance provides considerations and a series of options that can be used to inform country strategies to minimise risk associated with shortages of personal protective equipment (PPE).
Re-use and reprocessing of single use PPE must be a last-resort temporary measure that is impl...emented only until stocks are replenished (2).This remains an area of active research and further updates to this evidence base are anticipated.
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21 January 2022
The overall threat posed by Omicron largely depends on four key questions: (i) how transmissible the variant is; (ii) how well vaccines and prior infection protect against infection, transmission, clinical disease and death; (iii) how virulent the variant is compared to other varian...ts; and (iv) how populations understand these dynamics, perceive risk and follow control measures, including public health and social measures (PHSM).
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Global and Regional Data 1 December 2021; The 90–90–90 targets were missed, but not by much. At the end of 2020, 84% of people living with HIV knew their HIV status, 87% of people living with HIV who knew their HIV status were accessing antiretroviral therapy, and 90% of people on treatment were... virally suppressed.
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MEDBOX Issue Brief no.18.
The MEDBOX team has compiled a new issue brief on the impact of COVID-19 on PLHIV HIV prevention programmes and treatment for this year's World AIDS Day on 1 December 2021.
Validation of elimination of mother-to-child transmission, or vertical transmission, of HIV, syphilis and hepatitis B virus (HBV), is an attestation that a country has successfully met standard criteria for elimination, or for being at 1 of the 3 levels of achievement on the ‘Path to Elimination... while delivering quality services for women, girls and their children, through the life-course, respecting human rights and ensuring gender equality and community engagement.
This document, the third version, adds on EMTCT of hepatitis B virus (HBV), bringing together a package of interventions and metrics to support integrated management and monitoring of vertical transmission across a wide range of epidemiological and programmatic contexts.
This document, the third version, adds on EMTCT of hepatitis B virus (HBV), bringing together a package of interventions and metrics to support integrated management and monitoring of vertical transmission across a wide range of epidemiological and programmatic contexts.
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To assess the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on health and HIV expenditure, UNAIDS carried out a modelling study on fiscal space for health and HIV. From a sample of 28 countries, three countries—the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Jamaica, and Lesotho—were selected to capture health and HIV ...expenditure impacts across countries with especially marked differences in burdens of disease (including HIV prevalence), HIV donor dependency, level of economic development, and geographic location. While the three-country sample is too small to permit findings to be generalized to other countries, these analyses are useful for informing UNAIDS’ work to identify some policy positions to minimize the COVID-19 pandemic’s impact on the HIV response.
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These WHO interim recommendations for use of the COVID-19 vaccine BIBP produced by Sinopharm 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.
Th...is document has been updated: version 15 March 2022.
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In this era, grand challenges lies in biodiversity loss, climate change, and global noncommunicable diseases signify that planet and humanity are in crisis. Scholarly evidence from human and animal kingdom suggest that there is an optimism in planetary health which can provide a unique and novel con...cept where efforts toward survival and remediation can be made. With accurate navigation, the current challenges can be mitigated leading to a new reality, one in which the core value is the well‐being of all. This paper discusses the drivers of planetary health and the role of community health workers (CHWs) in making health‐care system more resilient that can produce multiple benefits to community and overall planetary health. A web‐based international database such as Google, Google Scholar, SCOPUS/MEDLINE/PubMed, and JSTOR was searched relevant to a planetary health framework. The study findings suggest that CHWs can offer health care interventions through environmental health cobenefits across the spectrum of health effects of climate change cause and effects. These actions have been divided into four major categories (i. health care promotion and prevention, ii. health care strengthening, iii. advocacy, and iv. education and research) that CHWs perform through a variety of roles and functions they are engaged in protecting planetary health. CHWs contribute toward achieving sustainable development goals such as planetary health and focus on environment sustainability and well‐being of entire mankind.
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Using Epidemiology to Support Primary Health Care. Updated version of the WHO handbook published in the early 1990's entitled: Manual of Epidemiology for District Health Management or those with an interest in applied epidemiology in primary health care and district health systems