The full range and scale of all forms of violence against children are only now becoming visible, as is the evidence of the harm it does. This book documents the outcomes and recommendations of the process of the United Nations Secretary-General’s Study on Violence against Children. ‘The Study... is the first comprehensive, global study on all forms of violence against children.
It builds on the model of the study on the impact of armed conflict on children, prepared by Graça Machel and presented to the General Assembly in 1996, and follows the World Health Organization’s 2002 World Report on Violence and Health.1
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Following the high-level meeting of the UN General Assembly on antimicrobial resistance held in September 2016 which called for national, regional and international political commitment to address the issue, member countries agreed on the importance of moving forward to develop national action plans... by May 2017.
Iraq; represented by the Ministry of Health (MOH) and Ministry of Agriculture (MOA); responded by developing a comprehensive plan to control AMR by analysing the current situation of health, veterinary and environment and determining the strategic priorities for Iraq, which are in accordance with the WHO Global Action Plan objectives
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This Topic Guide has been compiled to provide an overview of undernutrition in the context of development. The focus of the Guide is on undernutrition, defined as the outcome of insufficient (quantity and quality) of food intake (hunger) and repeated infectious diseases. Undernutrition includes bein...g underweight for one’s age, too short for one’s age (stunted), underweight for one’s height (wasted), and deficient in vitamins and minerals (micronutrient malnutrition). This review does not focus on the other component of malnutrition, which is overnutrition
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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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As a high-burden neglected tropical disease, soil-transmitted helminth (STH) infections remain a major problem in the world, especially among children under five years of age. Since young children are at high risk of being infected, STH infection can have a long-term negative impact on their life, i...ncluding impaired growth and development. Stunting, a form of malnutrition in young children, has been long assumed as one of the risk factors in acquiring the STH infections. However, the studies on STH infection in children under five with stunting have been lacking, resulting in poor identification of the risk. Accordingly, we collected and reviewed existing related research articles to provide an overview of STH infection in a susceptible population of stunted children under five years of age in terms of prevalence and risk factors. There were 17 studies included in this review related to infection with Ascaris lumbricoides, Trichuris trichiura, hookworm, and Strongyloides stercoralis from various countries. The prevalence of STH infection in stunted children ranged from 12.5% to 56.5%. Increased inflammatory markers and intestinal microbiota dysbiosis might have increased the intensity of STH infection in stunted children that caused impairment in the immune system. While the age from 2 to 5 years along with poor hygiene and sanitation has shown to be the most common risk factors of STH infections in stunted children; currently there are no studies that show direct results of stunting as a risk factor for STH infection. While stunting itself may affect the pathogenesis of STH infection, further research on stunting as a risk factor for STH infection is encouraged.
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In recent years, Rwanda has been on the fast track to achieve major health improvements for its entire population. With the support of government agencies and various non-governmental partners, the Ministry of Health (MoH) has endeavored to decentralize Rwanda’s health system and bring health serv...ices closer to the people. Guided by multitude of national and international development frameworks, Rwanda’s healthcare successes include the establishment of a community health insurance scheme (mutuelle de santé), a system of cooperative-financed community health workers in every village, and interventions for researching, preventing, and treating diseases like HIV/AIDS, TB, and malaria.
As the MoH continues to design innovative means to reach and surpass its prescribed health outcome targets, it will hold as core principles the integration of service provision, the increase in healthcare capacity, and the attainment of sustainable funding sources. Rwanda is committed to achieving the Millennium Development Goals by 2015 and has declared Family Planning (FP) a national priority for poverty reduction and socioeconomic development of the country. Modern contraceptive use has more than quadrupled from 2005 to 2010, rising from 10% to 45%, but the government’s Economic Development and Poverty Reduction Strategy calls for an increase the modern contraceptive prevalence to 70% by 2016. While structural changes in health care and supply chains have led to noteworthy improvements in FP and other services, there are still many challenges that must be overcome. As such, a strategic plan is needed to coordinate FP efforts around a well-defined set of objectives and responsibilities.
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This document provides interim guidance on the management of the blood supply in response to the pandemic outbreak of coronavirus disease (COVID-19). It emphasizes the importance of being prepared and responding quickly and outlines key actions and measures that the blood services should take to mit...igate the potential risk to the safety and sufficiency of the blood supplies during the pandemic.
It should be read in conjunction with WHO Guidance for National Blood Services on Protecting the Blood Supply During Infectious Disease Outbreaks, which provides general guidance on the development of national plans to respond to any emerging infectious threats to the sufficiency or safety of the blood supply.
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This report investigates the impact of potential misclassification of samples on HIV prevalence estimates for 23 surveys conducted from 2010-2014. In addition to visual inspection of laboratory results, we examined how accounting for potential misclassification of HIV status through Bayesian latent ...class models affected the prevalence estimates. Two types of Bayesian models were specified: a model that only uses the individual dichotomous test results and a continuous model that uses the quantitative information of the EIA (i.e., the signal-to-cutoff values). Overall, we found that adjusted prevalence estimates matched the surveys’ original results, with overlapping uncertainty intervals. This suggested that misclassification of HIV status should not affect the prevalence estimates in most surveys. However, our analyses suggested that two surveys may be problematic. The prevalence could have been overestimated in the Uganda AIDS Indicator Survey 2011 and the Zambia Demographic and Health Survey 2013-14, although the magnitude of overestimation remains difficult to ascertain. Interpreting results from the Uganda survey is difficult because of the lack of internal quality control and potential violation of the multivariate normality assumption of the continuous Bayesian latent class model. In conclusion, despite the limitations of our latent class models, our analyses suggest that prevalence estimates from most of the surveys reviewed are not affected by sample misclassification.
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Screening programmes for tuberculosis (TB) among immigrants rarely consider the heterogeneity of
risk related to migrants’ country of origin. We assess the performance of a large screening programme in asylum seekers by analysing (i) the difference in yield and numbers needed to screen (NNS) by c...ountry and WHO-reported TB burden, (ii) the possible impact of screening thresholds on sensitivity, and (iii) the value of WHO-estimated TB burden to improve the prediction accuracy of screening yield.
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Policy and Legal Opportunities for HIV Testing Services and Civil Society Engagement
This curriculum will help you, and your community, understand the science of the virus that causes COVID-19 and other viruses like it. It will help you to figure out how this virus is impacting or affecting you or may impact you in the future. It will help you to understand the actions that you can ...take to keep yourself and your community safe.
It is available in 15 languages. Download for free at the website
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This brief summarises key considerations about the social, political and economic context of Goma in relation to the outbreak of Ebola in the DRC as of March 2019. Goma is the administrative capital of North Kivu province and a major urban centre in the Great Lakes Region. The city is home to an est...imated 1.5 million people and serves as an important economic and transportation hub that links eastern Congo to the broader East African sub-region. The arrival of Ebola in Goma would substantially increase the at-risk population and heighten the potential for cross-border transmission to neighbouring countries, particularly Rwanda. This brief therefore focuses on local social and political structures that can be leveraged to promote preparedness and readiness actions.
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The Malaria Operational Plans below are detailed 1-year implementation plans for PMI focus countries. Each plan reviews the current status of malaria control and prevention policies and interventions, identifies challenges and unmet needs to achieve PMI goals, and provides a description of planned P...MI-funded activities.
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This FY 2019 Malaria Operational Plan presents a detailed implementation plan for Burkina Faso, based on the strategies of PMI and the National Malaria Control Program (NMCP). It was developed in consultation with the NMCP and with the participation of national and international partners involved in... malaria prevention and control in the country. The activities that PMI is proposing to support fit in well with the national malaria control strategy and plan and build on investments made by PMI and other partners to improve and expand malaria-related services, including malaria grants from the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria. This document briefly reviews the current status of malaria control policies and interventions in Burkina Faso, describes progress to date, identifies challenges and unmet needs to achieving the targets of the NMCP and PMI, and provides a description of activities that are planned with FY 2019 funding.
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This FY 2017 Malaria Operational Plan presents a detailed implementation plan for Senegal, based on the strategies of PMI and the National Malaria Control Program (NMCP) strategy. It was developed in consultation with the NMCP and with the participation of national and international partners involve...d in malaria prevention and control in the country. The activities that PMI is proposing to support fit in well with the new National Malaria Control strategy and plan (2016-2020) and build on investments made by PMI and other partners to improve and expand malaria-related services, including the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria (Global Fund) malaria grants. This document briefly reviews the current status of malaria control policies and interventions in Senegal, describes progress to date, identifies challenges and unmet needs to achieving the targets of the NMCP and PMI, and provides a description of activities that are planned with FY 2017 funding.
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