A guide to increasing coverage and equity in all communities in the African Region
Expanded Programs on Immunization (EPI) is responsible for vaccines and vaccination to control, eliminate and eradicate vaccine preventable diseases (VPDs). Having strong immunization systems to deliver vaccines ...to those who need them most will play a significant role in achieving the health, equity and economic objectives of several global development goals.
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Following the declaration of the 9th Ebola Disease Outbreak (EVD) on 8 May 2018 by the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) Ministry of Health, the WHO has raised the alert for neighbouring countries of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) which share extensive borders, hosting DRC refugees and ...are used as corridors for DRC population movement. On 1 August 2018, just one week after the declaration of the end of the Ebola outbreak in Equator province, the 10th Ebola epidemic of the DRC was declared in the provinces of North Kivu and Ituri, which are among the most populated provinces in the DRC that also share borders with Uganda and Rwanda.
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Prioritise education in conflict-affected areas:
Across the world 28 million1 primary school-age children living in conflict-affected countries are
out-of-school, and they form half of the world’s total out-of-school population. During conflict,
infrastructure assets such as schools are damaged... or completely destroyed during fighting. Children
may choose to stay away from school due to their and their family’s safety fears in the midst of
conflict, or the need to supplement their family’s income amidst conflict-related financial loss.
Children who are internally displaced by conflict face a particularly challenging task accessing
education due to the specific conditions created by their displacement, such as loss of livelihoods
making school fees hard to find, and discrimination from host communities. Children caught in
conflict are being deprived of their right to education2 and denied the opportunity to benefit from the
protective and life-sustaining mechanisms of education.
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More than three months since the start of the war in Ukraine, people globally are facing a cost-of-living crisis not seen in more than a generation, with escalating price shocks in the global food, energy and fertilizer markets - in a world already grappling with the COVID-19 pandemic and climate ch...ange.
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Today, the world is facing a learning crisis: While millions of children have entered education systems for the first time, many of them cannot read, write or do basic mathematics, even after several years of primary school.1 This global learning crisis has its roots in children’s earliest years, ...when failure to invest in quality early childhood education (ECE)results in children starting school already behind in a host of critical skills they need to succeed in primary school.2Investing in the foundations of learning during the child’s early years benefits children,3 families, education systems and societies at large.4 Participation in quality ECE sets in motion a positive learning cycle and is a proven strategy to address the global learning crisis at its roots by closing early learning gaps, strengthening the efficiency of education systems and providing a solid foundation for human capital development and economic grow
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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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In the present report, the Special Rapporteur on the sale and sexual exploitation of children, including child prostitution, child pornography and other child sexual abuse material, Mama Fatima Singhateh, focuses on the impact of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) p...andemic on increased risk and various manifestations of sale and sexual exploitation of children. The Special Rapporteur outlines the push and pull factors, protection challenges and good practices, and provides recommendations on measures to address the heightened risks of sale and sexual exploitation of children, both online and offline, during and in the aftermath of the COVID-19 crisis and the ensuing lockdowns.
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Noma (cancrum oris) is a severe gangrenous disease of the mouth and face. It mostly affects children between the ages of 2 and 6 years living in extreme poverty. In addition to the known factors such as malnutrition, lack of vaccination in children and poor oral hygiene, several social and environme...ntal factors such as maternal malnutrition and close spacing of pregnancies that result in offspring with increasingly weakened immune systems are potentially related to the onset of the disease.
The aim of this guide is to assist the ministries of health (MoHs) to identify a general goal to be attained by the end of five years, with a view to sustainably reducing the incidence of noma as a public health problem through programmes that are fully integrated with national health planning, strengthening of primary health care (PHC) and attainment of UHC.
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A United Nations System Commitment for
Action to assist Member States delivering on
the post-2020 global biodiversity framework
These WHO interim recommendations for use of the COVID-19 vaccine BIBP produced by Sinopharm were developed on the basis of advice issued by the Strategic Advisory Group of Experts on Immunization (SAGE) and the evidence summary included in the background document and annexes referenced below.
Th...is document has been updated: version 15 March 2022.
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Saving lives is the priority of WHO’s response in Ukraine. WHO works to ensure time-critical, lifesaving multisectoral assistance, non-discriminatory access to emergency and essential health services and priority prevention programmes, and laying the foundation for longer-term health systems recov...ery and strengthening.
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In the last decade, Timor-Leste has made remarkable progress in strengthening its health system and improving the health status of its population. This has resulted in an increased life expectancy, and the achievement of Millennium Development Goals such as a reduction in infant and under-five morta...lity, an improvement in maternal and child health outcomes, and an increase in immunization coverage. Further, the country has successfully eliminated infectious diseases such as polio, measles, and maternal and neonatal tetanus. There is full political commitment to reducing the incidence of tuberculosis (TB) by 80% and the number of deaths due to TB by 90% by 2030. The country has made great progress in the context of the pandemic, having established numerous quarantine facilities/isolation centres; trained health-care workers; streamlined the procurement and supply of medicines, consumables, personal protective equipment and other equipment; and strengthened the capacity in critical care across secondary and tertiary health care, to better respond to future pandemics and other disaster situations.
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There has been important progress for the rights of adolescent girls and women in recent decades, yet millions still struggle to
access the nutritious diets, essential nutrition services and nutrition and care practices they need to prevent malnutrition.
Undernutrition, micronutrient deficiencies ...and anaemia amplify gender inequalities by lowering learning potential, wages and life opportunities for adolescent girls and women, weakening their immunity to infections, and increasing their risk of lifethreatening complications during pregnancy and childbirth.
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This checklist is for any organization or person supporting the routine use of evidence in
the process of policy-making. Evidence-informed policy-making (EIPM) is essential for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and universal health coverage (UHC). Its importance is emphasized in WH...O’s Thirteenth General Programme of
Work 2019–2023 (GPW13). This checklist was developed by the WHO Secretariat of Evidence-Informed Policy Network (EVIPNet) to assist its Member countries in institutionalizing EIPM. Government agencies (i.e. the staff of the Ministry of Health),
knowledge intermediaries and researchers focused on strengthening EIPM will find in this checklist some key steps and tools to help their work. While the health sector is a key target group for EVIPNet, this tool can be applied by stakeholders from
different social sectors
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This report provides insight into the work that UNFPA has been doing to tackle FGM across borders in these border areas, where country offices are implementing a wide range of initiatives to address the issue. The information provided in this report is structured into four pillars, namely those list...ed in the regional action plan to eliminate cross-border FGM endorsed by the Governments that participated in the interministerial meeting on ending cross-border FGM held in 2019.
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This resource is the third in a series of online guides for promoting positive mental health across the lifespan. This resource provides health and social service providers (“practitioners”) with current evidence-based approaches in the application of mental health promotion concepts and princip...les for refugees. It is intended to support practitioners, caregivers and others in incorporating best practice approaches to mental health promotion initiatives or programs directed toward refugees.
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22 Sept. 2021
The rapid development of effective Covid-19 vaccines in 2020 gave hope to the world in the darkest days of the deadly pandemic. However, the vaccine roll-out has been massively skewed towards wealthy nations. While rich states have hoarded vaccines, companies have also played a decisi...ve role in restricting fair access to a life-saving health product. This report focuses on six leading vaccine developers, AstraZeneca, BioNTech, Johnson & Johnson, Moderna, Novavax and Pfizer, assessing each company’s human rights policy, pricing structure, records on intellectual property, knowledge and technology sharing, allocation of available vaccine doses and transparency.
Available in Arabic, English, French, German and Spanish
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The Investment guidelines for youth in agrifood systems in Africa, developed jointly by FAO and the African Union Commission (AUC) through a multi-stakeholder and participatory process, highlight the importance of youth as change agents and key stakeholders contributing to sustainable agrifood syste...ms. The guidelines aim to accelerate investments in and by youth in agrifood systems by providing practical guidance - including tools and examples - to design, develop, implement, monitor and evaluate youth-focused and youth-sensitive investment programmes and to engage youth fully as partners in the entire process.
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