The second edition of the WHPCA Global Atlas of Palliative Care was launched during World Hospice & Palliative Care Day 10 October. The Atlas is an update of the original WHPCA/WHO Global Atlas of Palliative care at the end of life published in 2014. It is full of useful facts and figures to support... palliative care advocacy and development. In this edition we have switched from using the WHO methodology for need for palliative care to the evolving Lancet Commission on Palliative Care and Pain Relief methodology. As a result the number of people needing palliative care has gone from 40 million per year to almost 57 million and more accurately reflects the need for palliative care globally models of palliative care worldwide? What resources are devoted to palliative care? What is the way forward?
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1 June 2020
Countries around the world are facing the challenge of increased demand for care of people with COVID-19, compounded by fear, misinformation and limitations on movement that disrupt the delivery of health care for all conditions. Maintaining essential health services: operational guidan...ce for the COVID-19 context recommends practical actions that countries can take at national, subregional and local levels to reorganize and safely maintain access to high-quality, essential health services in the pandemic context. It also outlines sample indicators for monitoring essential health services, and describes considerations on when to stop and restart services as COVID-19 transmission recedes and surges. This document expands on the content of pillar 9 of the COVID-19 strategic preparedness and response plan, supersedes the earlier Operational guidance for maintaining essential health services during an outbreak, and complements the recently-released Community-based health care, including outreach and campaigns, in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. It is intended for decision-makers and managers at the national and subnational levels.
This is an update to COVID-19: Operational guidance for maintaining essential health services during an outbreak: Interim guidance, 25 March 2020
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Les mises à jour réalisées pour de nombreux pays ont permis d’estimer la faim dans le monde avec une plus grande précision cette année. En particulier, les données nouvellement accessibles ont permis de revoir l’ensemble des estimations annuelles de la sous-alimentation en Chine en remonta...nt jusqu’à 2000, ce qui a entraîné une importante révision à la baisse du nombre de personnes sous-alimentées dans le monde. Néanmoins, la révision confirme la tendance signalée dans les éditions précédentes: le nombre de personnes touchées par la faim dans le monde est en lente augmentation depuis 2014.
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Policy brief, 24 July 2020
The COVID-19 pandemic has affected older people disproportionately, especially those living in long-term care facilities. In many countries, evidence shows that more than 40% of COVID-19 related deaths have been linked to long-term care facilities, with figures being as h...igh as 80% in some high-income countries. Concerted action is needed to mitigate the impact across all aspects of long-term care, including home- and community-based care, given that most users and providers of care are those who are vulnerable to severe COVID-19.
This policy brief provides 11 policy objectives and key action points to prevent and manage COVID-19 across long-term care. Its intended audience is policy makers and authorities (national, subnational and local) involved in the COVID-19 pandemic. The brief builds on currently available evidence on the measures taken to prevent, prepare for and respond to the COVID‑19 pandemic across long-term care services including care providers
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The COVID-19 pandemic poses an additional and critical challenge in a fragile humanitarian context, where the population is already highly vulnerable and lives in often overcrowded settlements where distancing is impossible, and with limited access to basic health services and hygiene. Further sprea...d of COVID-19 in the EHoA region will burden the already complex humanitarian situation with devastating consequences.
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he pandemic has produced an unprecedented economic and social crisis, and it could generate a food, humanitarian, and political crisis if urgent measures are not taken. The policy options for addressing the pandemic entail consolidating national plans and achieving intersectoral consensus. The respo...nse should be structured in three nonlinear and interrelated phases—control, reactivation, and rebuilding—involving the participation of technical actors representing not only the field of health but also other social and economic areas. Measures implemented to control the pandemic as well as measures for the reactivation and rebuilding phases will require increased public investment in health until the recommended parameters are achieved.
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This manual presents a compelling case for action on carbapenem-resistant organisms (CROs) and describes the linkages between the prevention and control of CROs and the Global Action Plan on Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR). It describes how the eight recommendations contained within the World Health ...Organization (WHO) guidelines for the prevention and control of carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae, Acinetobacter baumannii and Pseudomonas aeruginosa in health care facilities relate to general measures (that is, the core components of infection prevention and control [IPC] programmes) that need to be in place in all countries and health care facilities to prevent and control health care-associated infections (HAIs). The use of a stepwise approach is proposed to support implementation and improvement, based on the evidence and experience of what has worked in several health care settings worldwide. The focus is on adoptable and adaptable information.
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Sepsis contributes significantly to preventable mortality and is the final common pathway to death for severe infectious diseases; it can also arise as a complication of injuries and non-communicable diseases.
The rapid arrival of millions of asylum seekers and migrants in Europe in 2015–16 forced cities both large and small to rethink their approach to immigrant inclusion.
Under the theme Equity at the Heart of Health, this Plan seeks to catalyze efforts in Member States to reduce inequities in health within and between countries and territories in order to improve health outcomes. The Plan identifies specific actions to tackle health inequality, including those recom...mended by the Commission on Equity and Health Inequalities in the Americas, with guidance from the High-level Commission for Universal Health. Four cross-cutting themes are central to this Plan’s approach to addressing the determinants of health: equity, gender, ethnicity, and human rights
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The manual has been designed in a comprehensive manner, the aim being to provide a holistic approach to the short-term development of human resources, with a focus on primary care physicians. This is a reference manual meant for primary care physicians who will provide care to older people in primar...y health care facilities. The information on old age care is meant to be incorporated into the everyday clinical practice of primary care physicians. This manual will help to enhance the knowledge and skills of physicians. It is expected that the use of the manual will improve the approach to issues of old age and promote holistic care of older people, which will ultimately improve their quality of life.
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Primary health care, as outlined in the 1978 Declaration of Alma-Ata and again 40 years later in the 2018 WHO/UNICEF document A vision for primary health care in the 21st century: towards universal health coverage and the Sustainable Development Goals, is a whole-of-government and whole-of-society a...pproach to health that combines the following three components: multisectoral policy and action; empowered people and communities; and primary care and essential public health functions as the core of integrated health services.(1) Primary health care-oriented health systems are health systems organized and operated so as to make the right to the highest attainable level of health the main goal, while maximizing equity and solidarity. They are composed of a core set of structural and functional elements that support achieving universal coverage and access to services that are acceptable to the population and that are equity enhancing. The term “primary care” refers to a key process in the health system that supports first-contact, accessible, continued, comprehensive and coordinated patient-focused care.
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This document shall serve as the most comprehensive set of guidelines on the safe management of waste generated from heath care activities in the country. It incorporates the requirements of all Philippine laws and regulations governing HCWM and is designed for the use of individuals, public and pri...vate establishments, and other entities involved in segregation, collection, handling, storage, treatment,and disposal of waste generated from heath care activities.
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The 2021 COVID-19 Strategic Preparedness and Response Plan (SPRP) for AFR serves as a regional guide for a holistic public health response to COVID‑19 at regional, national and sub-national levels. The 2021
SPRP:
1. Builds upon the lessons learnt from the implementation of the 2020 SPRP and outl...ines a regional preparedness, response and recovery strategy for COVID‑19.
2. Has been adapted to reflect the Regional context including COVID-19 vaccination. It also considers epidemiological changes and recommen-dations emerging from the evaluation report of the 2020 SPRP4.
3. Highlights to Member States strategic preparedness and response actions to be sustained at national and sub-national levels, as well as the critical inter-agency and partner support required.
4. provides the indicative resource requirements to reinforce WHO planned interventions in the African Region to enhance countries’ capacities to suppress transmission, save lives and mitigate the impact of the pandemic on people and health systems.
5. Provides a road map for mitigating potential resurgence in the Region as economies reopen and ensure country level continuity of other essential health services.
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INTRODUCTION: The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted health systems around the world. The objectives of this study are to estimate the overall effect of the pandemic on essential health service use and outcomes in Mexico, describe observed and predicted trends in services over 24 months, and to estimat...e the number of visits lost through December 2020.
METHODS: We used health information system data for January 2019 to December 2020 from the Mexican Institute of Social Security (IMSS), which provides health services for more than half of Mexico's population-65 million people. Our analysis includes nine indicators of service use and three outcome indicators for reproductive, maternal and child health and non-communicable disease services. We used an interrupted time series design and linear generalised estimating equation models to estimate the change in service use and outcomes from April to December 2020. Estimates were expressed using average marginal effects on the risk ratio scale.
RESULTS: The study found that across nine health services, an estimated 8.74 million patient visits were lost in Mexico. This included a decline of over two thirds for breast and cervical cancer screenings (79% and 68%, respectively), over half for sick child visits and female contraceptive services, approximately one-third for childhood vaccinations, diabetes, hypertension and antenatal care consultations, and a decline of 10% for deliveries performed at IMSS. In terms of patient outcomes, the proportion of patients with diabetes and hypertension with controlled conditions declined by 22% and 17%, respectively. Caesarean section rate did not change.
CONCLUSION: Significant disruptions in health services show that the pandemic has strained the resilience of the Mexican health system and calls for urgent efforts to resume essential services and plan for catching up on missed preventive care even as the COVID-19 crisis continues in Mexico.
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As a lower-middle-income country (LMIC), South Africa (SA) bears
the burden of maternal and neonatal mortality similar to other sub-
Saharan African countries. According to the Saving Mothers Report
2017/19, there has been a progressive and sustained reduction
in institutional maternal mortality... (iMMR) in the past three triennia
(2010-2019), from 320 per 100,000 live births to 120 per 100,000 live
births.
According to the Rapid Mortality Survey, the country’s infant mortality
rate has declined from 29 deaths per 1000 live births in 2014 to 25
deaths per 1,000 live births in 2018. The institutional neonatal death
rate showed a slight decrease from 12,7 deaths per 1,000 live births in
2016 to the current level of 12 per 1,000 live births and has remained
static at this level for the past three years (saDHIS).
Working towards the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) of reducing maternal mortality to below 70 per 100 000 live births and neonatal mortality to 12 deaths per 1000 live births, South Africa aims to reduce institutional maternal mortality, neonatal mortality and stillbirths by 50% by 2030.
This Maternal, Perinatal and Neonatal Health Policy provides a
framework for the delivery of quality, comprehensive, and integrated
MNH services and will guide the development and review of guidelines
and related MNH interventions, including strengthening of the service
delivery platform, governance, leadership and accountability for
the provision of quality MNH services, development of advocacy
messages, and guiding civil society priorities and community
initiatives. The policy will also guide the development and review of
academic curricula and the setting of research priorities.
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