Rabies is fatal, vaccine-preventable disease responsible for an estimated 59,000 human deaths each year. Most cases are transmitted by dogs, and most deaths occur in underserved populations in Africa and Asia. Approximately 40% of deaths occur in children.
Violence against women and girls is widespread in the Region of the Americas, resulting in enormous consequences for the health and wellbeing of women and girls, their families and communities. These costs are unacceptable and they can be prevented through evidence-based action, including the health... sector through its policies and protocols, as well as in collaboration with other sectors. This report remains the first of its kind and is a major milestone for the Region. It is specifically informed by the commitments of Member States in the regional Strategy and Plan of Action on Strengthening the Health System to Address Violence against Women. The report provides an analysis of efforts to advance the prevention of violence against women through health policies, clinical protocols, multisectoral plans and related approaches across the Americas. Attention to this topic is timely, as the COVID-19 pandemic has created new visibility for this area of work. This report offers critical information on efforts in the Region that can be learned from and used to build upon in the future to prevent and respond to violence against all women and girls everywhere.
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La violencia contra las mujeres y las niñas es generalizada en la Región de las Américas, y tiene enormes consecuencias para su salud y bienestar, así como el de sus familias y sus comunidades. Se trata de un costo inaceptable que puede ser prevenido mediante acciones basadas en la evidencia, pr...omovidas por las políticas y los protocolos del sector de la salud, y la colaboración con otros sectores. El presente informe es el primero de su tipo y representa un hito importante para la Región. Se basa específicamente en los compromisos asumidos por los Estados Miembros en la Estrategia y plan de acción sobre el fortalecimiento del sistema de salud para abordar la violencia contra la mujer. El informe ofrece un análisis de los esfuerzos para avanzar en la prevención de la violencia contra las mujeres en la Región por medio de políticas de salud, protocolos clínicos, planes multisectoriales y otros enfoques relevantes. La atención a este tema es oportuna, ya que la pandemia de COVID-19 ha dado más visibilidad a esta esfera de trabajo. En este informe se ofrece información crucial sobre los esfuerzos llevados a cabo en la Región, de los cuales se puede aprender y utilizar el conocimiento extraído en el futuro para prevenir y responder a la violencia contra las mujeres y las niñas en todo el mundo.
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Report of a global meeting on yaws eradication surveillance, monitoring and evaluation: Geneva, 29–30 January 2018. World Health Organization.
It is impossible to address the many complex needs of respiratory virus surveillance with a single surveillance system. Multiple systems, investigations and studies must each be fit-for-purpose to specific priority surveillance objectives, and only together can they provide essential information to ...policy-makers. In essence, each surveillance approach fit together as “tiles in a mosaic” that provides a complete picture of respiratory viruses and the impact of associated illnesses and interventions at the country level. This mosaic framework demonstrates how surveillance approaches may be implemented as coordinated and collaborative systems, well-matched to specific priority objectives.
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The application of digital health technology is growing at a rapid rate in Africa, with the goals of improving the delivery of healthcare services and more effectively reaching out to remote and underserved communities. The lack of enabling guidelines and standards across the continent, on the other... hand, makes it difficult to share data in a meaningful way across the continent.
Considering this, Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) established a task force of 24 members to provide expertise and guidance in the development of AU HIE guidelines and standards. Members of the task force were subject matter experts working in Africa and internationally on the collection, analysis, and exchange of health information. Some of these experts had been involved in previous consultations on defining Africa CDC’s health information systems strategy. A chairperson, co-chairperson, and secretary were elected to engage the task force members in different technical working groups.
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This report presents the results of the official United Nations estimates and projections of urban and rural populations for 233 countries and areas of the world and for close to 1,900 urban settlements with 300,000 inhabitants or more in 2018, as published in World Urbanization Prospects: The 2018 ...Revision. The data in this revision are consistent with the total populations estimated and projected according to the medium variant of the 2017 Revision of the United Nations global population estimates and projections, published in World Population Prospects: The 2017 Revision. This revision updates and supersedes previous estimates and projections published by the United Nations.
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Following the publication of Guidelines on certification of elimination of human onchocerciasis in 2001 by the World Health Organization (WHO), these are the first evidence-based guidelines developed by NTD Department according to the international standards. They provide a set of recommendations th...at would guide national programme managers in collaboration with their respective oversight committees on when to stop mass drug administration (MDA) and conduct post-treatment surveillance (PTS) activities for a minimum period of 3 to 5 year before confirming the interruption of transmission of Onchocerca volvulus parasite and hence its elimination. They also include steps to undertake for verification of elimination of transmission of the parasite in the whole endemic country by the International Verification Team (IVT) prior to the official acknowledgement by WHO Director General.
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Children with disabilities are particularly vulnerable in humanitarian settings, yet they are often not able to access the services and protection they need. While multiple factors create these barriers, a major cause is how data about children with disabilities is collected and mapped. Data collect...ion processes often exclude or underrepresent the views of children with disabilities and thier caretakers. When the experiences of children with disabilities and their caretakers are not defined and collected, they become excluded from mainstreamed protective services, which are meant to serve all children. Children with disabilities also do not get the specialised interventions they need.
This guidance note explores how to use qualitative methods to create more robust assessment processes to ensure more effective programming and services for children with disabilities. This note provides promising practices for engaging with children with disabilities and includes sample tools that can be tailored to fit the needs of a particular assessment process. The note also explores the importance of thoughtful cross-sectoral responses so that children with disabilities, and their families, are carefully considered in areas like water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH), education, health, and nutrition, and therefore receive the holistic support they need and deserve.
This note is intended for a broad audience of relevant child protection actors, including practitioners, coordination groups, researchers, and donors. The information is not limited to one type of humanitarian setting, geographic region, or culture. As a result, the practices and guidance should be adapted to each specific context, ideally in partnership with well-informed local actors, such as representatives from local organisations for persons with disabilities.
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his publication provides an overview of social inequalities in several indicators related to the health of women, children, and adolescents in a region deemed as one with high levels of inequality: Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC). In order for it to serve as a baseline for the 2030 Agenda, emp...hasis is placed on examining these inequalities around the year 2014. The analysis suggests that reducing within-country disparities is a priority, as widespread social inequalities in health are identified among LAC countries.
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Since the last situation report on the multi-country outbreak of cholera was published on 1 June 2023 (covering data reported until 15 of May), no new country reported a cholera outbreak. In total, 24 countries have reported cases since the beginning of 2023. The WHO African Region remains the most ...affected region with 14 countries reporting cholera cases since the beginning of the year. The overall capacity to respond to the multiple and simultaneous outbreaks continues to be strained due to the global lack of resources, including shortages of the Oral Cholera Vaccine (OCV) and cholera supplies, as well as overstretched public health and medical personnel, who are dealing with multiple parallel disease outbreaks and other health emergencies. Based on the large number of outbreaks and their geographic expansion, as well as a lack of vaccines and other resources, WHO continues to assess the risk at global level as very high.
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There is growing international consensus that food systems transformation is important to address the challenges of malnutrition in all its forms, the burden of noncommunicable diseases (NCDs), environmental sustainability, increasing inequality and ensuring the welfare of workers and animals. In li...ght of the urgency of these challenges, there are questions about the role of red and processed meat in healthy and sustainable food systems. Globally, production and consumption of all types of meat has increased substantially in the last 50 years, and – although red meat consumption is now plateauing in high-income countries (HICs) – is predicted to increase by a further 50% by 2050. Meat consumption remains highly unequal both between and within countries, and animal-source food intakes, including red meat, are lowest among those at most risk of undernutrition
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This report is the annual global monitoring report documenting progress towards Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 2 targets 2.1 and 2.2. This year’s report explores the links between urbanization and changing food systems and how these changes are impacting the availability, affordability and des...irability of healthy diets, food security and malnutrition in all its forms. It shows that understanding the ways in which urbanization is shaping food systems will require using a rural-urban continuum lens. By mapping the interlinkages across the rural-urban continuum, governments can identify challenges created by urbanization and suitable policies, technologies, investments and governance mechanisms to help address them.
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Diets are changing everywhere, and the burden of disease associated with unhealthy diets is a worldwide concern. Measurement and monitoring of diets across countries and population groups is critical. However, there are no harmonized metrics for tracking how the healthfulness of diets around the wor...ld is evolving.
This report assesses the validity, usefulness and fitness for purpose of existing healthy diet metrics as global and national monitoring indicators, presents a comparative assessment of selected healthy diet metrics and discusses priorities and opportunities to improve diet monitoring. This report is an important first step of the Healthy Diets Monitoring Initiative to respond to the need for developing healthy diets metrics for assessing and monitoring diets at national and global level.
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The Leprosy Programme and Transmission Assessment (LPTA) is an activity that is carried out by internal teams towards the end of Phase 1 (see Leprosy Elimination Framework in the Annex) when a subnational jurisdiction (typically second-tier) reaches the milestone for interruption of transmission, i....e., zero autochthonous child cases for a consecutive period of five years. It also needs to be done at the end of Phase 2, when the second milestone of elimination of leprosy disease has been reached. An LPTA will be carried out to document that all relevant programme criteria have been met and examine trends of epidemiological indicators in such jurisdiction to confirm that the milestone has been achieved. The LPTA includes assessment of health facilities that provide leprosy services. LPTA comprises of review of epidemiological data, health facility assessment and data validation and verification of the programme criteria through observation during a field visit. The evidence collected in this way in subnational health administrative units is compiled in a Leprosy Elimination Dossier to be submitted to WHO when the country reaches the milestone for elimination of disease in the country as whole. Countries that have not detected any new leprosy cases in the past three years or more can use the LPTA at national level prior to or as part of the verification process. Countries likely to be among the first to apply for verification may have had no new cases detected for more than 10 years.
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The 2021 Global monitoring report on financial protection in health shows that before the COVID-19 pandemic, the world was off-track to reduce financial hardship due to health expenditures because trends in catastrophic health spending were going in the wrong direction and the number of people incur...ring impoverishing health spending remained unacceptably high (Chapter 1). Chapter 2 summarizes emerging evidence on the consequence of the pandemic and the related macroeconomic and fiscal crisis that points to the likely worsening of financial protection for households, particularly as a result of declining income and consumption, along with rising poverty and inequality
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The Creditor Reporting System was analysed for official development assistance funding disbursements towards TB control in 11 conflict-affectedstates, 17 non-conflict-affected fragile states and 38 comparable non-fragile states. The amounts of funding, funding relative to burden, funding relative to... malaria and human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) control, disbursements relative to commitments, sources of funding as well as funding activities were extracted and analysed.
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The biennium 2020–2021 has revealed more clearly than ever the need for a strong, credible and independent WHO on the world stage. The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) crisis has demonstrated the fundamental importance of the global detection, response and coordination roles that only WHO can play a...cross all Member States. At the same time, the challenges to global health systems and the pressure to ensure equal access to quality health care and the best health possible for all have mounted. The triple billion targets of the Thirteenth General Programme of Work, 2019–2023 remain relevant. The work of WHO in all contexts has never been more critical. However, as several Member States have pointed out, the COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the discrepancy between what the world expects of WHO and what it is able to deliver with the resources/capacity it has at its disposal. Sustainable financing is thus a key challenge for the Organization that must be addressed as part of the lessons learned from the current COVID-19 pandemic. Member States discussed this issue in detail during the Seventy-third World Health Assembly and their conclusions were reflected in resolution WHA73.1 (2020). The topic of adequate funding is not new. However, discussions on the matter have, to date, remained rather abstract. Building on previous discussions and taking account of lessons learned, the WHO Secretariat would like to initiate a process aimed at finding a concrete solution to the sustainable financing of WHO. This document proposes a process through which to arrive at such a decision, including the key stages and timeline.
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Since the last situation report on the multi-country outbreak of cholera was published on 6 July 2023 (covering data reported until 15 of June), and as of 15 July 2023, one new outbreak of cholera was reported from India on 15 May 2023. In total, 25 countries have reported cases since the beginning ...of 2023. The WHO African Region remains the most affected region with 14 countries reporting cholera cases since the beginning of the year. The overall capacity to respond to the multiple and simultaneous outbreaks continues to be strained due to the global lack of resources, including shortages of the Oral Cholera Vaccine (OCV) and cholera supplies, as well as overstretched public health and medical personnel, who are dealing with multiple parallel disease outbreaks and other health emergencies. Based on the large number of outbreaks and their geographic expansion, as well as a lack of vaccines and other resources, WHO continues to assess the risk at global level as very high.
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The Infection prevention and control in the context of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19): a living guideline consolidates technical guidance developed and published during the COVID-19 pandemic into evidence-informed recommendations for infection prevention and control (IPC). This living guideline... is available both online and PDF.
**This version of the living guideline (version 5.0) **includes the following seven revised statements for the prevention, identification and management of SARS-CoV-2 infections among health and care workers:
a good practice statement on national and subnational testing strategies;
a good practice statement on passive syndromic surveillance of health and care workers;
a good practice statement on prioritizing health and care workers for SARS-CoV-2 testing;
a good practice statement on protocols for reporting and managing health and care worker exposures;
a good practice statement to limit in-person work of health and care workers with active SARS-CoV-2 infections;
a statement on high-risk exposures and quarantine; and,
a conditional recommendation on the duration of isolation for health and care workers.
Understanding the updated section
Prevention of infections in the health care setting includes a multi-pronged and multi-factorial approach that includes IPC and occupational health and safety measures and adherence to Public Health and Social Measures in the community by the health workforce. The underlying infection prevention and control strategy of this section is the notion that early identification of symptomatic cases, testing and quarantining/isolating health and care workers decreases the risk of nosocomial infection to patients and to other health and care workers.
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