Circulating vaccine-derived poliovirus type 2 in Angola
Ebola virus disease in Democratic Republic of the Congo
Dengue fever in Côte d’Ivoire
Humanitarian crisis in north-east Nigeria.
Top 10 hungriest countries contribute just 0.08% of global CO2.
-Climate & Food Vulnerability Index shows 10 most food insecure countries emit less than half a tonne of CO2 per person
-Burundi is the world's most food insecure and smallest per capita emitter
-The average Briton gener...ates as much CO2 as 212 Burundians
-IPCC blockers Russia, USA and Saudi some of the worst offenders
As scientists of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change meet in Geneva this week to publish their Special Report on Climate Change and Land (August 8), a new report by the development charity Christian Aid shows that climate change is having a disproportionate impact on the food systems of the country’s least responsible for causing the climate crisis.
The IPCC is expected to show how climate change will affect global food supply, spiking prices and reducing nutrition. It is also likely to recommend that countries will need to drastically cut emissions if global food security is to be protected.
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The main goal of the National Health Plan (NHP) 2017-2021 is to extend access to a basic Essential Package of Health Services (EPHS) to the entire population while increasing financial protection. In order to extend service delivery to all communities, the NHP calls for all health workers (whether c...ommunity-based, outreach-based or facility-based) involved in the delivery of health promotion, prevention and treatment services to be fully recognised and institutionalized within the health system to ensure efficient use of resources, necessary oversight and quality service provision (regardless of whether the health workers are voluntary or salaried). The first year Annual Operational Plan (AOP) of the NHP 2017-2021 calls for a comprehensive literature review of the situation of all Village Based Health Workers (VBHWs) in the country to inform the development of a comprehensive, institutionalized approach to community health for the country.
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The study analyses the current situation of children with disabilities in relation to realizing their rights and accessing basic services, as well as their life experiences in their communities. It also focuses on identifying the barriers created by society that prevent children with disabilities fr...om enjoying their human rights. This includes identifying negative attitudes; environmental and communication barriers; gaps in policies or their effective implementation.
The report reveals that children with disabilities in Myanmar are less likely to access services in health or education; rarely have their voices heard in society; and face daily discrimination as objects of pity. It also highlights how inadequate policies and legislation contribute to the challenges these children face.
The information available in this publication should be useful for policy makers, development partners and Disabled Persons Organisations to promote the realization of the rights of all children with disabilities.
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S Afr Med J 2018;108(7):546-550. DOI:10.7196/SAMJ.2018.v108i7.13149
Antimicrobial stewardship programmes have been introduced worldwide in response to the rise in antimicrobial resistance. The World Health Organization has mandated each Member State to produce a plan to address this problem. We rep...ort on the organic development of an antibiotic stewardship programme in a rural regional hospital in a resource-limited setting in South Africa. This has resulted in organisational change with increased awareness, participation, monitoring and education in antibiotic stewardship throughout the hospital
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Effective risk communication requires the alignment of complex factors including trust between the communicator and the audience(s), audience involvement, and emotional responses to risk. Risk communication is especially challenging now as new media changes the landscape for both
communicators and... their audiences. Viewed as a discussion of the most important findings for risk communicators and managers, this report delves into research-driven recommendations for effective risk communication practices.
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In many of Myanmar’s contested regions, healthcare services are provided through two parallel governance systems – by the government’s Ministry of Health, and by providers linked to ethnic armed organizations. Building upon efforts to build trust between these two actors following ceasefires s...igned in 2011 and 2012, the new National League for Democracy-led government offers an unprecedented opportunity to increase cooperation between these systems and to ensure health services reach Myanmar’s most vulnerable populations.
The report provides an overview of existing health service arrangements in these areas, from both the Ministry of Health and from ethnic and community-based health organizations. It then unpacks the concept of “convergence”, highlighting key opportunities and policy recommendations for both government and non-government actors.
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An Economist Intelligence Unit briefing paper | The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) undertook a study aimed at assessing the degree of commitment of 15 countries within the AsiaPacific region to integrating those with mental illness into their communities. The research was commissioned and funded... by Janssen Asia Pacific, a division of Johnson & Johnson Pte. Ltd. This report focuses on the results of this benchmarking study, called the Asia-Pacific Mental Health Integration Index. Drawing on lessons from the EIU’s 2014 European Mental Health Integration Index, this edition index compares the level of effort in each of the countries on indicators associated with integrating individuals suffering from mental illness into society. Data for the Index was collected between March and May 2016. The set of 18 indicators were grouped into four categories.
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The 2015-16 MDHS is a national sample survey that provides up-to-date information on fertility levels; marriage; fertility preferences; awareness and use of family planning methods; child feeding practices; nutrition; adult and childhood mortality; awareness and attitudes regarding HIV/AIDS; women...s empowerment; and domestic violence. The target groups were women and men age 15-49 residing in randomly selected households across the country. In addition to national estimates, the report provides estimates of key indicators for both urban and rural areas in Myanmar and also for the 15 states and regions.
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The pre-clinical pipeline shows more innovation and diversity, with 252 agents being developed to treat WHO priority pathogens.
However, these products are in the very early stages of development and still need to be proven effective and safe. The optimistic scenario, the report indicates, is for... the first two to five products to become available in about 10 years.
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Cities can help nations achieve their Paris Agreement commitment by supporting the implementation of transformational actions to increase the supply of renewable energy, improve building energy efficiency, increase access to affordable, low carbon transport options, and change consumption patterns. ...
Seventy per cent of C40 cities report that they are already experiencing the impacts of climate change. Cities need to adapt and improve their resilience to climate hazards that may impact them, both in the short-term and in future climate change scenarios. Cities are already leading the way with ambitious plans to accelerate action on climate change. With more political will, community support and collaboration, cities can make an even greater contribution to securing a climate safe future.
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Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is a serious public health concern with economic, social and political implications that are global in scope, and cross all environmental and ethnic boundaries. As a global threat, AMR risks the achievements of modern medicine, and has the po...tential to impact overall global development. It is important, therefore, to elevate AMR beyond health as part of a larger development agenda in the context of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This report provides in-depth technical discussions in areas that have direct implications to the containment of AMR as a development agenda. The report is organized in five chapters which served as the technical background documents for the Biregional Technical Consultation on AMR in Asia, 14-15 April 2016. More information from the meeting is available in the WHO Meeting Report: Biregional Technical Consultation on Antimicrobial Resistance in Asia. The meeting was the first time senior officials from the Ministry of Health and Ministry of Agriculture across Asia came together to tackle AMR
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The pandemic presents tough choices for governments, local communities, health and school systems, as well as families and businesses: How to re-open safely? How to safeguard people’s lives and protect their livelihoods? Where to allocate scarce resources? How to protect those unable to protect th...emselves? Answers to questions like these will affect our short-term success in battling the spread of the virus and could have impacts for generations to come.
More than ever, the world needs reliable and trustworthy data and statistics to inform these important decisions. The United Nations and all member organizations of the Committee for the Coordination of Statistical Activities (CCSA) collect and make available a wealth of information for assessing the multifaceted impacts of the pandemic. This report updates some of the global and regional trends presented in Volume I and offers a snapshot of how COVID-19 continues to affect the world today across multiple domains.
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For the first time WHO and UNICEF bring together the data on sanitation coverage and investment, and how it impacts health, economies, and the environment. Citing evidence on what works from successful countries and global guidelines, WHO and UNICEF call for strong government leadership and investme...nt in resilient sanitation services. The report charts an ambitious way forward following the SDG6 global acceleration framework themes of governance, financing, capacity development, data and information, and innovation to achieve universal access to safe sanitation.
Read the full publication report here: https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/9789240014473.
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The purpose of the review was to assign a cause of death, to ascertain the fac-tors that contributed to the death and to identify any systemic issues that could be addressed to prevent future similar deaths. The perinatal mortality audit process in 2019 provided important insights and evidence-based... recommendations that can be used both to address system errors and barriers and to identify and praise points of strength. The aim is to pro-vide recommendations for better care for mothers and their infants during pregnancy, childbirth and the neonatal period and improve the quality of care provided throughout the health system.
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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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Against the backdrop of the COVID-19 pandemic, health is receiving unprecedented public and political attention. Yet the fact that climate change also presents us with a health crisis deserves further recognition. From more deaths due to heat stress to increased transmission of infectious diseases, ...climate change affects the social and environmental determinants of health in ways that are profound and far-reaching. The fundamental interdependency of human health and the health of the environment is encapsulated in the concept of planetary health, a scientific field and social movement that has been gaining force since the 2015 publication of the Rockefeller Foundation-Lancet Commission report “Safeguarding human health in the Anthropocene epoch”.
We see an urgent need for strategic communication to raise awareness of climate-health synergies in order to overcome the misperception that climate and health are two independent agendas. The fragmented and sector-focused nature of thinking and action remains a significant barrier to integrating health considerations into climate planning and project development. Inevitably, collaboration across sectors requires a community of practice. Despite recent efforts focused on the climate-health nexus, much work remains to be done to translate scientific findings for policymakers, mobilise climate financing resources in support of health co-benefits, and promote genderjust solutions within climate change projects.
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PNAS | March 4, 2014 | vol. 111 | no. 9
Malaria is an important disease that has a global distribution and significant health burden. The spatial limits of its distribution and seasonal activity are sensitive to climate factors, as well as the local capacity to control the disease. Malaria is also ...one of the few health outcomes that has been modeled by more than one research group and can therefore facilitate the first model intercomparison for health impacts under a future with climate change. We used bias-corrected temperature and rainfall simulations from the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 climate models to compare the metrics of five statistical and dynamical malaria impact models for three future time periods (2030s, 2050s, and 2080s). We evaluated three malaria outcome metrics at global and regional levels: climate suitability, additional population at risk and additional person-months at risk across the model outputs. The malaria projections were based on five different global climate models, each run under four emission scenarios (Representative Concentration Pathways, RCPs) and a single population projection. We also investigated the modeling uncertainty associated with future projections of populations at risk for malaria owing to climate change. Our findings show an overall global net increase in climate suitability and a net increase in the population at risk, but with large uncertainties. The model outputs indicate a net increase in the annual person-months at risk when comparing from RCP2.6 to RCP8.5 from the 2050s to the 2080s. The malaria outcome metrics were highly sensitive to the choice of malaria impact model, especially over the epidemic fringes of the malaria distribution.
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The threat climate change poses to health, equity, and development has been rigorously documented. However, in an era marked by economic crisis, regional conflicts, natural disasters and growing disparities between rich and poor, the joint global actions required to address climate change have been ...vigorously debated – and critical decisions postponed.
This document, part of WHO’s Health in the Green Economy series, describes how many climate change measures can be “win-wins” for people and the planet.
These policies yield large, immediate public health benefits while reducing the upward trajectory of greenhouse gas emissions. Many of these policies can improve the health and equity of people in poor countries and assist developing countries in adapting to climate change that is already occurring, as evidenced by more extreme storms, flooding, drought and heatwaves.
WHO’s Department of Public Health and Environment launched the Health in the Green Economy initiative in 2010 to review potential health and equity “co-benefits” of proposed climate change measures – as well as relevant risks.
This review examines mitigation strategies discussed in the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change which constitutes the most broad-based global review of mitigation options by scientific experts.
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The majority of Countdown countries did not reach the fourth Millennium Development Goal (MDG 4) on reducing child mortality, despite the fact that donor funding to the health sector has drastically increased. When tracking aid invested in child survival, previous studies have exclusively focused on... aid targeting reproductive, maternal, newborn, and child health (RMNCH). We take a multi-sectoral approach and extend the estimation to the four sectors that determine child survival: health (RMNCH and non-RMNCH), education, water and sanitation, and food and humanitarian assistance (Food/HA). Methods and findings: Using donor reported data, obtained mainly from the OECD Creditor Reporting System and Development Assistance Committee, we tracked the level and trends of aid (in grants or loans) disbursed to each of the four sectors at the global, regional, and country levels. We performed detailed analyses on missing data and conducted imputation with various methods. To identify aid projects for RMNCH, we developed an identification strategy that combined keyword searches and manual coding. To quantify aid for RMNCH in projects with multiple purposes, we adopted an integrated approach and produced the lower and upper bounds of estimates for RMNCH, so as to avoid making assumptions or using weak evidence for allocation. We checked the sensitivity of trends to the estimation methods and compared our estimates to that produced by other studies. Our study yielded time-series and recipient-specific annual estimates of aid disbursed to each sector, as well as their lower- and upper-bounds in 134 countries between 2000 and 2014, with a specific focus on Countdown countries. We found that the upper-bound estimates of total aid disbursed to the four sectors in 134 countries rose from US$ 22.62 billion in 2000 to US$ 59.29 billion in
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