Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is a complex issue of global concern. AMR is not simply a problem of medical science being beaten by nature; human action and perverse incentives play a major role in its development. The misuse of antibiotics in the medical, veterinary and agricultural sectors, which ...include the inappropriate prescribing of antibiotics, their overuse in the livestock sector, and insufficient hygiene practices in hospital, all contribute to the rise of AMR
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Confronted with the important issue of patient safety, in 2002 the Fifty-fifth World Health Assembly adopted a resolution urging countries to pay the closest possible attention to the problem and to strengthen safety and monitoring systems. In May 2004, the Fifty-seventh World Health Assembly approv...ed the creation of an international alliance as a global initiative to improve patient safety. The World Alliance for Patient Safety was launched in October 2004 and currently has its place in the WHO Patient Safety programme included in the Information, Evidence and Research Cluster.
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Education is UNESCO’s top priority because
it is a basic human right and the foundation
on which to build peace and drive sustainable
development. UNESCO is the United Nations’
specialized agency for education and the
Education Sector provides global and
regional leadership in education, s...trengthens
national education systems and responds
to contemporary global challenges through
education with a special focus on gender
equality and Africa.
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The COVID-19 pandemic has been a formative experience for all humanity and a health emergency of global proportions, presenting a huge challenge to national leaders, health systems, and citizens. The findings of a new report by the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) sho...ws that it has also been a test to our democracies and the respect for human rights to which countries across the OSCE committed many years ago.
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This fourth progress report November 2020 of the Global HIV Prevention Coalition reviews the progress in the 28 focus countries and complements the three previous progress reports. This report describes key developments in 2019–2020, identifies challenges and opportunities (including those associa...ted with the COVID-19 pandemic) and outlines priorities for the years ahead. It is divided into two main sections.
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This technical report describes the results of a cross-sectional survey conducted in Dushanbe, Tajikistan, between April and May 2016, as part of the FEEDcities Project – Eastern Europe and Central Asia. The aim was to describe the local street food environment: the characteristics of the vending ...sites, the food offered and the nutritional composition of the industrial and homemade foods usually consumed in these settings.
The study was part of a bilateral partnership between WHO and the Institute of Public Health of the University of Porto, Portugal, in collaboration with the Faculty of Medicine, the Faculty of Nutrition and Food Sciences and the Faculty of Pharmacy of the University of Porto (WHO registration numbers 2015/591370 and 2017/698514).
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This technical report presents the results of a cross-sectional survey conducted in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, between June and July 2016, as part of the FEEDcities Project – Eastern Europe and Central Asia. The aim was to describe the local street food environment: the characteristics of the vending si...tes, the food offered and the nutritional composition of the industrial and homemade foods often available in these settings. The report also provides guidance for policies to translate the findings into action.
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This technical report presents the results of a cross-sectional survey conducted in Banja Luka, the Republika Srpska, Bosnia and Herzegovina, between July and August 2017, as part of the FEEDcities Project (Food Environment Description in cities – eastern Europe and central Asia). The aim of the r...eport is to describe the city’s local street food and takeaway food environment, exploring the characteristics of food vending sites, the industrially produced and homemade foods they typically offer, and the nutritional composition of these foods. Finally, the report provides guidance on how to address its findings through policy action.
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This technical report presents the results of a cross-sectional survey conducted in Sarajevo, the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bosnia and Herzegovina, between June and August 2017, as part of the FEEDcities Project (Food Environment Description in cities – eastern Europe and central Asia).... The aim of the report is to describe the city’s local street food and takeaway food environment, exploring the characteristics of food vending sites, the industrially produced and homemade foods they typically offer, and the nutritional composition of these foods. Finally, the report provides guidance on how to address its findings through policy action.
The study was conducted through a bilateral partnership between the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Institute of Public Health of the University of Porto, in collaboration with the Faculty of Medicine, the Faculty of Nutrition and Food Sciences, the Faculty of Pharmacy of the University of Porto (WHO registration 2015/591370 and 2017/698514) and the Institute of Public Health of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The study was funded through a voluntary contribution of the Ministry of Health of the Russian Federation, and through a contribution made by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC)/Swiss Government to a joint WHO/SDC project, “Reducing Health Risk Factors in Bosnia and Herzegovina: Developing and Advancing Modern and Sustainable Public Health Strategies, Capacities and Services to Improve Population Health”, implemented in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
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The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has created a global and gendered crisis that is compounding existing inequalities and disproportionately affecting girls and women. Emerging evidence from the COVID-19 crisis in 2020 shows school closures, disruptions in essential services and rising... poverty contributed to girls’ increased risk of female genital mutilation (FGM). School closures limited the monitoring and reporting of cases of FGM. Rising household monetary poverty may have contributed to families adopting negative coping mechanisms, including having girls undergo FGM as a precursor to marriage to reduce household costs. A report from the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) estimates 2 million additional cases of FGM by 2030 due to the pandemic.
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The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has created a global and gendered crisis that is compounding existing inequalities and disproportionately affecting girls and women. Emerging evidence from the COVID-19 crisis in 2020 shows school closures, disruptions in essential services and rising... poverty contributed to girls’ increased risk of female genital mutilation (FGM). School closures limited the monitoring and reporting of cases of FGM. Rising household monetary poverty may have contributed to families adopting negative coping mechanisms, including having girls undergo FGM as a precursor to marriage to reduce household costs. A report from the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) estimates 2 million additional cases of FGM by 2030 due to the pandemic.
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In 2015, to advance the global and national response to antimicrobial resistance (AMR), the World Health Assembly issued resolution WHA68.7 calling for all Member States to develop AMR national action plans that address the five objectives of the World Health Organization Global Action Plan (GAP) by... May 2017. The WHO GAP provides a framework to support countries in developing their national action plans on AMR. To operationalize and accelerate implementation of national action plans on AMR, WHO has developed a costing and budgeting tool and accompanying user guide. The purpose is to support countries in costing prioritized activities of an operational plan linked to their AMR national action plan, and identify existing funding and funding gaps to promote resource mobilization and sustainable implementation. The target audience of the publication are national policy makers and designated costing coordinators for national action plans on AMR.
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At a time when the world is reeling from the deepest global disruption and health crisis of a lifetime, this year’s Living Planet
report provides unequivocal and alarming evidence that nature is unraveling and that our planet is flashing red warning signs of
vital natural systems failure. The ...Living Planet Report 2020 clearly outlines how humanity’s increasing destruction of nature is having
catastrophic impacts not only on wildlife populations but also on human health and all aspects of our lives.
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The WHO End TB Strategy aims to end the global TB epidemic by 2030, in alignment with Goal 3 of the United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Member States of the World Health Organization (WHO) and the UN committed to ending the TB epidemic through adoption of WHO’s End TB Strateg...y and the UN SDGs in 2014 and 2015, respectivel
Almost half of the deaths worldwide caused by TB in 2019 occurred in the WHO South-East Asia Region, home to around a quarter of the global population. Maintaining robust progress in this Region is therefore essential if the global goal of ending the TB epidemic is to be realized. Despite substantial gains made in the Region, the threat to
health worldwide posed by the COVID-19 pandemic has the potential to reverse these gains and eclipse the focus on the global TB emergency.
While continuing to tackle COVID-19-related challenges, countries will need to rapidly and urgently deploy supplementary measures to address the large numbers of missed cases, poor treatment outcomes and, potentially, a higher TB burden.
The Regional Strategic Plan towards Ending TB in the Region 2021–2025 clearly articulates priority interventions, analyses the challenges, bottlenecks and opportunities, and focuses on implementation considerations in the Region.
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Infectious diseases continue to impose unpredictable burdens on global health and economies, a subject that requires constant research and updates. In this sense, the objective of the present article was to review studies on the role of wild animals as reservoirs and/or dispersers of etiological age...nts of human infectious diseases in order to compile data on the main wild animals and etiological agents involved in zoonotic outbreaks.
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Globally, more than 3 million new cases and 10 000 deaths have been reported in the week of 26 December 2022 to 1 January 2023. This represents a reduction in weekly cases and deaths of 22% and 12%, respectively. In the last 28 days (5 December 2022 to 1 January 2023), over 14.5 million cases and ov...er 46 000 new fatalities were reported globally – an increase of 25% and 21%, respectively, compared to the previous 28 days. As of 1 January 2023, over 656 million confirmed cases and over 6.6 million deaths have been reported globally.
In this edition, we include:
The COVID-19 epidemiological update at the global and regional levels.
An update on the circulating SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern (VOCs) and Omicron subvariants under monitoring.
An update on hospitalizations and ICU admissions related to COVID-19.
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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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This thematic brief accompanies the Working for Health 2022–2030 Action Plan, serving as a rationale to the related actions of the Working for Health progression model (see Annex). The brief aims to inform Member States, non-state actors and other users of the Action Plan to guide action on inves...tments on strengthening protection and performance of the health and care workforce, including the relevant policy landscape, key challenges and future directions.
In doing so, it provides an expanded exploration of the themes beyond what is provided in the Action Plan itself and reflects the topical issues and considerations that shaped its design, including those issues identified in the World Health Assembly Resolution WHA74.14 to protect, safeguard and invest in the health and care workforce (1). The importance of these themes was again emphasized at the Seventy-fifth World Health Assembly, when Resolution WHA75.17: Human resources for health was co-sponsored by over 100 Member States, calling for the adoption and implementation of the Working for Health 2022–2030 Action Plan and utilization of the related Global Health and Care Worker Compact
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The highly complex and largely neglected Chagas disease (CD) has become a global health problem due to population movements between Latin America and non-endemic countries, as well as non-vectorial transmission routes. Data on CD testing and treatment from routine patient care in Germany of almost t...wo decades was collected and analysed.
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The longlist of knowledge gaps is based on existing research agendas published in 2015 or later and expert input from reviewers of the first draft of the longlist. It only includes knowledge gaps focussing on a better
understanding of the relationship between global environmental change and human h...ealth, and finding an answer to the question of how best to protect human health against these new threats.
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