Thirty years ago, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Convention on the Rights of the Child at a moment of rapid global change marked by the end of apartheid, the fall of the Berlin Wall and the birth of the World Wide Web. These developments and more brought momentous and lasting evolut...ion, as well as a sense of renewal and hope for future generations. In a reflection of that hopeful spirit, the Convention has since become the most widely ratified human rights treaty in history.
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The 2014–2015 Ebola epidemic in western Africa was the longest and most deadly Ebola epidemic in history, resulting in 28,616 cases and 11,310 deaths in Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone. The Ebola virus has been known since 1976, when two separate outbreaks were identified in the Democratic Repub...lic of Congo (then Zaire) and South Sudan (then Sudan). However, because all Ebola outbreaks prior to that in West Africa in 2014–2015 were relatively isolated and of short duration, little was known about how to best manage patients to improve survival, and there were no approved therapeutics or vaccines. When the World Heath Organization declared the 2014-2015 epidemic a public health emergency of international concern in August 2014, several teams began conducting formal clinical trials in the Ebola affected countries during the outbreak.
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This guidance document is designed to ensure that the process of iteratively managing the health risks of climate change is integrated into the overall National Adaptation Planning (NAP) process, including through assessing risks; identifying, prioritizing, and implementing adaptation options; and m...onitoring and evaluating the adaptation process.
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This report is primarily intended for the community of policymakers and researchers concerned about the rising risks of domestic, regional, and global infectious disease epidemics, and the collective failure to take the coordinated actions required to reduce such risks. These risks include the expec...ted health, economic, and societal costs that are borne by countries, regions, and even all nations in the case of pandemics (which are worldwide epidemics). These risks also include the consequences of increasing antimicrobial resistance (AMR) and its spread within regions and globally. A necessary first step is to monitor whether a broad range of stakeholders are acting to prevent outbreaks from becoming epidemics, whether their capacities to respond to epidemics are robust, and whether preparedness to respond to pandemics and limit the resulting economic and health damage is improving. Analyzing the adequacy of these efforts is vitally important for the decisions of policymakers to invest in the public health and disaster-risk management capacities. Early and effective control of disease outbreaks prevents substantial health and economic costs whether or not the disease can spread globally and become a pandemic.
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The Ministry of Health has developed the first version of the Service Standards and Service Delivery Standards for the health sector in Uganda. The main objective is to provide a common understanding of what is expected by the public, service users and service providers in ensuring provision of cons...istently high quality service delivery. These standards also provide a roadmap for improving the quality, safety and reliability of healthcare in Uganda.
The application of these standards is expected to improve transparency and accountability in service delivery; fairness and equity in service provision; building a culture of quality management; regulation, management and control of public and private providers; and management of expectations of service recipients.
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Doc. No.: INS/GDL/001-(Annexes)
The threat posed by antimicrobial resistance (AMR) to public health as well as global health security has been reiterated in umerous World Health Assembly (WHA) resolutions. AMR is also prioritized under the Global Health Security Agenda (GHSA), and India is one of the contributing countries. The Mi...nistry of Health & Family Welfare (MoHFW) identified AMR as one of the top 10 priorities for the ministry’s collaborative work with WHO. The National Health Policy 2017 identifies antimicrobial resistance as a problem and calls for effective action to address it. An international conference on AMR – “Combating Antimicrobial Resistance: A
Public Health Challenge and Priority”, was jointly organized by the Government of India and World Health Organization (WHO) in February 2016, which was attended by more than 350 participants. The Hon’ble Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi, and the Hon’ble Union Minister for Health, Shri J.P. Nadda have reiterated government’s commitment to tackle AMR.
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The 2014–2015 Ebola outbreak was catastrophic in West Africa but the indirect impact of increasing the mortality rates of other conditions was also substantial. The increased number of deaths caused by malaria, HIV/AIDS, and tuberculosis attributable to health system failures exceeded deaths from ...Ebola.
With a relatively limited COVID-19 caseload, health systems may have the capacity to maintain routine service delivery in addition to managing COVID-19 cases. When caseloads are high, and/or health workers are directly affected, strategic adaptations are required to ensure that increasingly limited resources provide maximum benefit for the refugees and surrounding host population. The following are key considerations for UNHCR operations on prioritized health care services in the event of a COVID-19 outbreak. These are based on WHO Guidance for Maintaining Essential Health Services and UNHCR guidance for operations and where relevant operation or site level outbreak preparedness and response plans.
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Prescriptions and Actionables for a Healthy and Green Recovery.
The practical steps outlined in this report aim at creating a healthier, fairer and greener world while investing to maintain and resuscitate the economy hit by the effects of COVID-19.
Policy makers, national and local decision-make...rs and a wide array of other actors wishing to contribute to a healthy recovery can now take decisive steps by shaping the way we live, work and consume. Effects on environmental degradation and pollution and climate change will be wide ranging. WHO and partner organizations have since long been developing substantive guidance and provide support for building healthier environments for healthier populations.
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This article is part four in a series of explainers on vaccine development and distribution.
Part one focused on how vaccines work to protect our bodies from disease-carrying germs.
Part two focused on the ingredients in a vaccine and the three clinical trial phases.
Part three focused on the ste...ps from completing the clinical trial phases through to distribution.
This document outlines the different types of vaccines.
Available in English, French, Spanisch, Arabic, Chinese and Russian
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1 March 2021 This roadmap aims to define the key questions users should consider to assess indoor ventilation and the major steps needed to reach recommended ventilation levels or simply improve indoor air quality (IAQ) in order to reduce the risk of spread of COVID-19.
It also includes recommendat...ions on how to assess and measure the different parameters, specifically in health care, non-residential and residential settings whenever a person is under home care or home quarantine.
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Training Modules for climate change and Health - WHO
The frequency of infectious disease epidemics is increasing, and the role of the health sector in the management of epidemics is crucial in terms of response. In the context of infectious disease epidemics, the use of climate-informed early warning systems (EWS) has the potential to increase the eff...ectiveness of disease control by intervening before or at the beginning of the epidemic curve, instead of during the downward slope.
Currently, the initiation of interventions is heavily reliant on routine disease surveillance systems – data that often arrive too late for preventative response. However, forecasting of disease outbreaks using surveillance and weather information shows promising potential – there also remains further scope to examine seasonal climate forecasts. By combining these elements in new EWS based on computational models, it will be possible to improve both the timeliness and impact of disease control. The World Health Organization (WHO) is strengthening existing surveillance systems for infectious diseases to enable the development of more robust and timely EWS, which has resulted in the rapid development and innovation of EWS for disease outbreaks.
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Int J Hyg Environ Health. 2019 Jun; 222(5): 765–777. doi: 10.1016/j.ijheh.2019.05.004;
To develop updated estimates in response to new exposure and exposure-response data of the
burden of diarrhoea, respiratory infections, malnutrition, schistosomiasis, malaria, soil-transmitted helminth
infec...tions and trachoma from exposure to inadequate drinking-water, sanitation and hygiene behaviours
(WASH) with a focus on low- and middle-income countries.
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Briefing Note no. 80 November 2015