This is a qualitative research documentary that was created by Alyson and Timothy Holland. The documentary explores the ethics of global health clinical electives and volunteer projects in developing regions. It features interviews from experts and global health providers from Europe, Africa, Asia, ...North and South America.
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salud pública de méxico / vol. 50, suplemento 2 de 2008, pp.167-177.
In response to the emerging global concern regarding health and people with intellectual disabilities (ID), several developed countries have established national initiatives to address the unique health needs of this population ...segment. However, most people with ID reside in countries with developing economies, such as many Latin American countries, yet there is virtually no information on the health of people with ID in these regions. Countries with developing economies face distinct challenges in promoting health among this population segment that may preclude adoption or adaptation of policies and practices developed in regions with established economies. This paper will address the issue of health promotion among people with ID in Latin America, an area that is undergoing significant reforms in both health care and disability rights
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Crisis Group’s Watch List identifies ten countries or regions at risk of deadly conflict or escalation thereof in 2021. In these places, early action, driven or supported by the EU and its member states, could enhance prospects for peace and stability.
Crisis Group’s early-warning Watch List id...entifies up to ten countries and regions at risk of conflict or escalation of violence. In these situations, early action, driven or supported by the EU and its member states, could generate stronger prospects for peace. The Watch List 2021 includes an Introduction, detailed conflict analyses and EU-targeted recommendations on Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Iran & the Gulf, Libya, Mexico & Central America, Nagorno-Karabakh, Somalia, Thailand and Venezuela.
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Histoplasmosis is a disease caused by the fungus Histoplasma capsulatum. This disease is highly endemic in some regions of North America, Central America, and South America and is also reported in certain countries of Asia and Africa. It often affects people with impaired immunity, including people ...living with HIV, among whom the most frequent clinical presentation is disseminated histoplasmosis. The symptoms of disseminated histoplasmosis are non-specific and may be indistinguishable from those of other infectious diseases, especially disseminated tuberculosis (TB), thus complicating diagnosis and treatment. Histoplasmosis is one of the most frequent opportunistic infections caused by fungal pathogens among people living with HIV in the Americas and may be responsible for 5–15% of AIDS-related deaths every year in this Region. These guidelines aim to provide recommendations for the diagnosis, treatment, and management of disseminated histoplasmosis in persons living with HIV
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28 Dec 2020. The main objective of these guidelines is to provide tools for staff working in the field of immunization to support effective communication between health personnel and the general population, with the aim of strengthening, maintaining or recovering trust in vaccines and the immunizati...on programs in the Region of the Americas.
Available in English, Spanish and Portuguese
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This publication presents a comprehensive methodology to support the Member States of the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) in preparing for and responding to heat-health risks in the Region of the Americas. It builds on World Health Organization and the World Meteorological Organization globa...l documents, as well as on the disaster preparedness methodologies employed throughout the countries of the Region. This publication is part of an effort coordinated by PAHO to support Member States in multihazard preparedness, and includes: early warning system strengthening; threat characterization; activation and deactivation procedure definition; and institutional coordination. It engages different disciplines and recognizes the importance of intersectoral collaboration to respond to heat-health risks. It aims to bring awareness of the impacts of heat on the health of people of the Americas to public health decisionmakers, and thereby strengthen health service provision.
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his sequel to the Groundswell report includes projections and analysis of internal climate migration for three new regions: East Asia and the Pacific, North Africa, and Eastern Europe and Central Asia. Qualitative analyses of climate-related mobility in countries of the Mashreq and in Small Island D...eveloping States (SIDS) are also provided. This new report builds on the scenario-based modeling approach of the previous Groundswell report from 2018, which covered Sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, and Latin America. The two reports’ combined findings provide, for the first time, a global picture of the potential scale of internal climate migration across the six regions, allowing for a better understanding of how slow-onset climate change impacts, population dynamics, and development contexts shape mobility trends.
Available in English, French, Arabic, Spanish
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The harmful use of alcohol causes approximately 3 million deaths every year and the overall burden of disease and injuries attributable to alcohol consumption remains unacceptably high. The pace of development and implementation of alcohol policies has been uneven in WHO regions, and resources and c...apacities for implementation of the WHO Global strategy to reduce the harmful use of alcohol 10 years after its endorsement do not correspond to the magnitude of the problems. On this basis, the WHO Executive Board in its decision EB146 (14) called for accelerated action to reduce the harmful use of alcohol.
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Key facts
Buruli ulcer is a chronic debilitating disease caused by an environmental Mycobacterium ulcerans.
At least 33 countries with tropical, subtropical and temperate climates have reported Buruli ulcer in Africa, South America and Western Pacific regions.
It often affects the skin an...d sometimes bone and can lead to permanent disfigurement and long-term disability.
The mode of transmission is not known and there is no prevention for the disease.
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This document provides an overview of malaria trends in all WHO regions as contained in the World malaria report 2022.
Population movements have turned Chagas disease (CD) into a global public health problem. Despite the successful implementation of subregional initiatives to control vectorial and transfusional Trypanosoma cruzi transmission in Latin American settings where the disease is endemic, congenital CD (cCD...) remains a significant challenge. In countries where the disease is not endemic, vertical transmission plays a key role in CD expansion and is the main focus of its control. Although several health organizations provide general protocols for cCD control, its management in each geopolitical region depends on local authorities, which has resulted in a multitude of approaches. The aims of this review are to (i) describe the current global situation in CD management, with emphasis on congenital infection, and (ii) summarize the spectrum of available strategies, both official and unofficial, for cCD prevention and control in countries of endemicity and nonendemicity. From an economic point of view, the early detection and treatment of cCD are cost-effective. However, in countries where the disease is not endemic, national health policies for cCD control are nonexistent, and official regional protocols are scarce and restricted to Europe. Countries of endemicity have more protocols in place, but the implementation of diagnostic methods is hampered by economic constraints. Moreover, most protocols in both countries where the disease is endemic and those where it is not endemic have yet to incorporate recently developed technologies. The wide methodological diversity in cCD diagnostic algorithms reflects the lack of a consensus. This review may represent a first step toward the development of a common strategy, which will require the collaboration of health organizations, governments, and experts in the field.
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Leishmaniasis is a parasitic disease caused by the Leishmania parasite. This parasite typically lives in infected sand flies. You can contract leishmaniasis from a bite of an infected sand fly.
The sand flies that carry the parasite typically reside in tropical and subtropical environments. Fatal... epidemics have occurred in areas of Asia, East Africa, and South America.
Affected regions are often remote and unstable, with limited resources for treating this disease. Doctors Without Borders calls leishmaniasis one of the most dangerous neglected tropical diseases. The organization also states this disease is second only to malaria in parasitic causes of death.
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Noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) are responsible for 81% of all deaths in the region of the Americas, of which 34% befall prematurely in people between 30- 69 years old. The burden of theses diseases and their common risk factors jeopardize the health systems to provide adequate management, as well a...s to implement customized policies and interventions. The PAHO/WHO STEPwise approach to NCD risk factor surveillance (STEPS) is a simple, sequential, standardized method for collecting, analyzing, and disseminating data on key NCD risk factors in countries in adults from 18 to 69 years old. This survey covers key modifiable risk factors: tobacco use, alcohol use, physical inactivity, and unhealthy diet, as well as key biological risk factors: overweight and obesity, raised blood pressure, raised blood glucose, and abnormal blood lipids. STEPS is a household survey that gathers information on the risk factors through a face-to-face interview (step 1), simple physical measurements (step 2), and collection of urine and blood samples for biochemical analysis (step 3). Every step has a core set of questions, measurements, and expanded sets depending on the countries' needs and interests. It also has optional modules. Implementing STEPS allows the comparability of data within and between countries due to its standardized data collection. It also helps health services plan public health priorities and monitors and evaluates population-wide interventions. It is designed to help countries build and strengthen their capacity to conduct surveillance. STEPS captures 11 of the 25 indicators outlined in the NCD Global Monitoring Framework relating to 7 of the nine global targets.
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This report includes analysis from informal regional consultations in the African Region, the Caribbean and North America, Latin America, South-East Asia Region, European Region, Eastern Mediterranean Region, alongside three forums in the Western Pacific Region. It analyses the overarching similarit...ies, regional nuances and priorities raised across the six WHO regions for the meaningful engagement of individuals with lived experience.
It is the second publication in the WHO Intention to action series, which aims to enhance the limited evidence base on the impact of meaningful engagement and address the lack of standardized approaches on how to operationalise meaningful engagement. The Intention to action series aims to do this by providing a platform from which individuals with lived experience, and organizational and institutional champions, can share solutions, challenges and promising practices related to this cross-cutting agenda. The Intention to action series also aims to provide powerful narratives, inspiration and evidence towards the Fourth United Nations High Level Meeting on NCDs in 2025 and achieving the 2030 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
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Hypertension, or high blood pressure, is a condition which generally has no symptoms and if left untreated, can lead to heart attacks, heart failure, stroke, kidney failure and blindness. Risk factors include older age, overweight or obesity, lack of physical activity, high salt/sodium intake, and h...igh alcohol intake.
Hypertension affects around 1 in 6 adults in the Americas and is the main risk factor for cardiovascular diseases, which are the leading cause of death in the region, responsible for around 2 million lives lost each year.
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Leishmaniasis is a vector-borne tropical/subtropical disease caused by an intracellular parasite transmitted to humans by sand fly bite. It is endemic in Asia, Africa, the Americas, and the Mediterranean region. Worldwide reports include 1.5–2 million new cases each year, more than 300 million at ...risk of acquiring the disease, and 70,000 deaths per year. Clinical features depend on the Leishmania species and immune response of the host, varying from localized cutaneous disease to visceral form with potentially fatal outcome; however, the common presentation is either cutaneous, mucocutaneous, or visceral leishmaniasis. Many therapeutic agents are being used in Leishmania treatment, but the only effective treatment is achieved with current pentavalent antimonials. WHO considers Leishmaniasis as one of the “Neglected Tropical Diseases” that continues to be prevalent despite international, national, and local efforts towards its control and elimination over the last decade. This chapter reviews the global perspective of Leishmaniasis with increasing recognition of emerging “Atypical forms” and new surge of disease across the world mainly due to increasing conflicts in endemic areas leading to forced migration among other causes. All these challenges related to environment, disease, and vector pose major implications on WHO’s leishmaniasis control and elimination plan.
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Small island developing states (SIDS) are a set of islands and coastal states that share similar sustainable development challenges, as a result of their size, geography and vulnerability to climate change. Thirty-nine WHO member states in four regions – the African Region, the Region of the Ameri...cas, the South-East Asian Region, and the Western Pacific region – are classified as SIDS. Whilst the individual countries differ in many respects, collectively they face unique social, economic and environmental challenges.
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This country profile presents a summary and analysis of Argentina's status with yellow fever. It is part of a series of profiles on this topic, each focusing on a different country in the Region of the Americas. Argentina's geographical location presents a wide territorial extension throughout diffe...rent latitudes, which determines a wide climatic variety, maintaining the conditions for the enzootic transmission of the yellow fever virus in jungle areas of the northeast of the country bordering Brazil and Paraguay. After controlling the major urban epidemics that hit the port city of Buenos Aires in the 20th century, Argentina maintains foci of enzootic activity in the northeast and isolated human cases for jungle acquisition. The increases in viral activity usually occur in a regional context of epizootics that affect southern Brazil and eastern Paraguay. Argentina has not presented autochthonous cases since 2008. Outbreaks have been sporadic with long intervals without evidence of viral activity.
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This codebook outlines the set of TUFF procedures that have been developed, tested, refined, and implemented by AidData staff and affiliated faculty at the College of William & Mary. We initially employed these methods to achieve a specific objective: documenting the known universe of officially fin...anced Chinese projects in Africa (Strange et al. 2013, 2017). We have since then employed these methods to track Chinese official finance to five major world regions: Africa, the Middle East, Asia and the Pacific, Latin America and the Caribbean, and Central and Eastern Europe (Dreher et al. 2017). Additionally, other social scientists have adapted and applied the TUFF methodology to identify grants and loans from Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) members (Minor et al. 2014), under-reported humanitarian assistance flows from traditional and non-traditional sources (Ghose 2017), foreign direct investment from Western and non-Western sources (Bunte et al. 2017), and pre-2000 foreign aid flows from China (Morgan and Zheng 2017). However, this codebook focuses specifically on TUFF data collection and quality assurance procedures to track Chinese official finance between 2000 and 2014.
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This video explains why noncommunicable diseases pose a threat to countries in the Region of the Americas and what are the main strategies to prevent them by reducing associated risk factors and improving the control and care of people who suffer from them .