Nosocomial or health-facility-acquired infections are a serious issue, representing one of the most significant causes of morbidity and mortality in healthcare systems and consuming many scarce resources, especially in developing countries. Although much has been done, particularly in the hospital s...etting, to reduce the risk of these infections, the problem persists and demands innovative and cost-efficient solutions.
Although the care provided in most primary health care facilities is predominantly ambulatory with few or no inpatient beds, infection prevention is still important to minimize or eliminate the risks of facility-acquired infections and assure quality patient care.
Health facilities and hospitals should have written infection control procedures and guidelines in place and should also be monitoring that these procedures are adhered to in both inpatient and ambulatory care settings.
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at the national and acute health care facility level
The Infection Prevention and Control (IPC) Assessment Framework (IPCAF) is a tool to support the implementation of the World Health Organization (WHO) Guidelines on core components of IPC programmes at the acute health care facility level. The user should be familiar with the contents of these guide...lines, including the Interim practical manual supporting the implementation of the IPC core components at the facility level before using this tool. The IPCAF is a systematic tool that can provide a baseline assessment of the IPC programme and activities within a health care facility, as well as ongoing evaluations through repeated administration to document progress over time and facilitate improvement.
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This document provides additional guidance for the responsible and prudent use of antimicrobials in food-producing animals, and should be read in conjunction with the Recommended International Code of Practice for Control of the Use of Veterinary Drugs CAC/RCP 38-1993. Its objectives are to minimize... the potential adverse impact on public health resulting from the use of antimicrobial agents in food-producing animals, in particular the development of antimicrobial resistance.
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Healthcare-associated infections (HAI) are a significant burden globally, with millions of patients affected each year. These infections affect both high- and limited-resource healthcare settings, but in limited-resource settings, rates are approximately twice as high as high-resource settings (15 o...ut of every 100 patients versus 7 out of every 100 patients). Furthermore, rates of infections within certain patient populations are significantly higher in limited-resource settings, including surgical patients, patients in intensive-care units (ICU) and neonatal units. It is well documented that environmental contamination plays a role in the transmission of HAIs in healthcare settings. Therefore, environmental cleaning is a fundamental intervention for infection prevention and control (IPC).It is a multifaceted intervention that involves cleaning and disinfection (when indicated) of the environment alongside other key program elements to support successful implementation (e.g., leadership support, training, monitoring, and feedback mechanisms). To be effective, environmental cleaning activities must be implemented within the framework of the facility IPC program, and not as a standalone intervention. It is also essential that IPC programs advocate for and work with facility administration and government officials to budget, operate and maintain adequate water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) infrastructure to ensure that environmental cleaning can be performed according to best practices.
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Health care-associated infection (HCAI) places a serious disease burden and has a significant economic impact on patients and health-care systems throughout the world. Yet good hand hygiene, the simple task of cleaning hands at the right times and in the right way, can save lives. World Health O...rganization (WHO) has developed evidence-based WHO Guidelines on Hand Hygiene in Health Care to support health-care facilities to improve hand hygiene and thus reduce HCAI.
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Report of the WHO/Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Consultation. The Consultation was organized back-to-back with the first annual meeting of the International Coordinating Group of the BMGF-funded project for human and dog rabies elimination in developing countries, held at WHO headquarters, Geneva,... Switzerland, from 5 to 7 October 2009. This allowed the Consultation to benefit from the participation of the national coordinators and advisers of the BMGF-funded projects in the Philippines, South Africa (KwaZulu-Natal) and the United Republic of Tanzania
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Un comité OMS d’experts sur la trypanosomiase humaine africaine (THA) : lutte et surveillance, s’est réuni à Genève (Suisse), du 22 au 26 avril 2013. Le Dr H. Nakatani, sous-directeur général pour le VIH/SIDA, la tuberculose, le paludisme et les maladies tropicales négligées, a ouvert la... réunion au nom du Dr M. Chan, directeur-général de l’OMS.
La THA est une maladie qui afflige les populations rurales de l’Afrique, là où prolifère la mouche tsé-tsé (ou glossine), vecteur des trypanosomes qui en sont la cause. On distingue deux formes de THA : la forme à T. b. gambiense ou forme gambienne, endémique en Afrique de l’Ouest et en Afrique centrale et qui
représente actuellement 95 % des cas, et la forme à T. b. rhodesiense ou forme rhodésienne, endémique en Afrique de l’Est et en Afrique australe, à laquelle sont dus les 5 % restants.
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Leptospirosis is a zoonotic disease with epidemic potential, especially after a heavy rainfall,
caused by a bacterium called Leptospira. Leptospira interrogans is pathogenic to humans and
animals, with more than 200 serologic variants or serovars. Humans usually acquire
leptospirosis through dire...ct contact with the urine of infected animals or a urine-contaminated
environment. Human-to-human transmission occurs only very rarely. Leptospirosis may present
with a wide variety of clinical manifestations, from a mild illness that may progress to a serious
and sometimes fatal disease. Its symptoms may mimic many diseases, such as influenza,
dengue and other viral haemorrhagic diseases; making the correct diagnosis (clinical and
laboratory) at the onset of symptoms is important to prevent severe cases and save lives,
primarily in outbreak situations.
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El objetivo de esta guía es brindar recomendaciones prácticas al personal de salud que se hace cargo de las actividades de preparación y respuesta a las enfermedades contagiosas para asegurar que se mantenga el acceso a servicios de aborto seguro (SAS) cuando surja un brote de enfermedades contag...iosas. Es una guía operativa que puede servir para apoyar a los actores de la salud para que los SAS se mantengan durante los brotes y asegurar que las consideraciones necesarias de SAS se integren dentro de la respuesta al brote; no es una guía clínica. El enfoque centrado en la ubicación de este documento se dirige a los asentamientos frágiles y de ayuda humanitaria; sin embargo, las recomendaciones pueden aplicarse a brotes de enfermedades contagiosas a cualquier población con escasez de recursos. Esta guía busca complementar el trabajo llamado La salud sexual y reproductiva y los derechos durante los brotes de enfermedades contagiosas: Guía operativa para escenarios frágiles y de ayuda humanitaria.
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Ce guide a pour objectif de fournir des conseils pratiques à destination du personnel de santé entreprenant des activités de préparation et de réponse aux maladies infectieuses afin de maintenir l’accès à des Soins d’Avortement sans Risque (SAR) durant une épidémie de maladie infectieus...e. Il s’agit d’un guide pratique destiné à aider les acteurs du secteur de la santé à garantir le maintien des services de Soins d’Avortement sans Risque (SAR) pendant les épidémies et à veiller à ce que les considérations nécessaires en matière de Soins d’Avortement sans Risque soient intégrées à la riposte à l’épidémie; il ne s’agit pas d’un guide clinique. Ce document se concentre sur les situations de crise humanitaire et les contextes fragiles, toutefois les recommandations peuvent s’appliquer aux épidémies de maladies infectieuses auprès des populations à faibles ressources. Ce guide est prévu en complément du document: Santé et droits en matière de sexualité et de procréation durant les épidémies de maladies infectieuses: orientations de mise en oeuvre pour les situations de crise humanitaire et les contextes fragiles.
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Snakebite envenoming constitutes a serious medical condition that primarily affects residents of rural communities in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and New Guinea. It is an occupational, environmental, and domestic health hazard that exacerbates the already impoverished state of these communities. Co...nservative estimates indicate that, worldwide, more than 5 million people suffer snakebite every year, leading to 25,000–125,000 deaths, while an estimated 400,000 people are left with permanent disabilities.
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The objectives of the meeting were:
1. To step up the commitment of national authorities and technical and financial partners toWHO’s elimination objective for g-HAT.
2. To share achievements, challenges and views on the elimination goal among countries and implementing partners.
3. To assess t...he status of critical technical aspects to be solved in research and development of drugs and diagnostic tools, epidemiology, vector control and animal reservoirs.
4. To define the mechanisms for strengthening and organizing collaboration and coordination among stakeholders.
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The objectives of the meeting were:
1. To update the current status of the disease transmission, country capacities and plans for tackling the disease.
2. To understand the epidemiology including disease distribution and risk, the models
for estimating under-detection, the geographical variati...ons of in clinical presentation,
the roles of domestic and wild animal reservoirs and the subsequent different
transmission patterns and control approaches, including vector control.
3. To update current research and development efforts for improving diagnostic and
treatment tools.
4. To define the goals for achieving the control of r-HAT, the need for a multisectoral
approach and to discuss the strategy for controlling r-HAT and the coordination
mechanisms.
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Schistosomiasis is widely recognized as a disease that is socially determined. An
understanding of the social and behavioural factors linked to disease transmission and
control should play a vital role in designing policies and strategies for schistosomiasis
prevention and control. To this must b...e added the awareness that schistosomiasis is
also a disease of poverty. It still survives in poverty-stricken, remote areas where there
is little or no safe water or sanitation, and health care is scarce or non-existent. For
a variety of complex reasons, many of which are addressed in this book, the disease
is particularly prevalent in sub-Saharan Africa, and persists in certain areas of rural
China. This concern for human behaviour in an environment of poverty echoes the
concerns of the new research priority for “diseases of poverty” identified by the
Special Programme for Research & Training in Tropical Diseases.
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Rabies is entirely preventable, and vaccines, medicines, tools and technologies have long been available to prevent people from dying of dog-mediated rabies. Nevertheless, rabies still kills about 60 000 people a year, of whom over 40% are children under 15, mainly in rural areas of economically dis...advantaged countries in Africa and Asia. Of all human cases, up to 99% are acquired from the bite of an infected dog.
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Medical care for people caught up in armed conflict and other insecure environments saves lives and alleviates suffering. It is one of the most immediate and high priority needs of an affected population and is often the first type of response activated and/or requested by authorities and affected c...ommunities. Medical teams working in armed conflict and other insecure environments
frequently face serious threats to their security and safety, challenges to patient access, and at times limited acceptance by affected communities in which they work and parties to the conflict. Such difficulties are likely to increase (6) and
thereby creating a critical need to establish contact and trust with all sides in conflicts and in other insecure environments to ensure operational continuity. This trust can best be achieved when all sides perceive the medical teams to be neutral, impartial, and independent, and specifically not aiding (or being perceived to aid) any one party to achieve a military, political or economic
advantage. For medical teams that are deploying increasingly closer to the frontlines, the implications of and consequences for both staff and patients of teams not being fully prepared, and/or not fully comprehending the context in which they work, can be severe. Medical response can easily be hindered or compromised by intentional or unintentional acts and the behaviour and
conduct of the teams themselves
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Rabies has an enormous impact on both agriculture and conservation biology, but its greatest burden is undeniably on public health. As such, routine methods for rapid risk assessment after human exposures to rabies as well as applications for laboratory-based surveillance, production of biologicals ...and management of this infectious disease are critical. Given its mandate to improve human health and control disease among its Member States, WHO has led the production of this fifth edition of Laboratory techniques in rabies.
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The WHO Living guideline: Drugs to prevent COVID-19 contains the Organization’s most up-to-date recommendations for the use of drugs to prevent COVID-19. The latest version of this living guideline is available in pdf format (via the ‘Download’ button) and via an online platform.
Guidelines ...regarding the use of drugs to treat (rather than prevent) COVID-19 are included in a separate WHO document, Therapeutics and COVID-19: living guideline, that can via an online platform and in pdf format (or click ‘PDF’ in top right corner of online platform). Guidelines regarding the clinical management of COVID-19 patients are included in a further document, COVID-19 Clinical management: Living guideline, that can be accessed via an online platform and in pdf format (or click ‘PDF’ in top right corner of online platform).
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The PS Centre has released three publications addressing the need for MHPSS tools and guidance in Ukraine and surrounding countries.
The Introduction to Psychological First Aid, presents a training module on basic psychological first aid skills for people affected by the international armed confl...ict in Ukraine which can be delivered in four hours. It is an adaption of another PS Centre publication, Training in Psychological First Aid for Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies. Module 1. An introduction to PFA.
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