COVID-19 disproportionately affects the poor and vulnerable. Community health workers are poised to play a pivotal role in fighting the pandemic, especially in countries with less resilient health systems. Drawing from practitioner expertise across four WHO regions, this article outlines the targete...d actions needed at different stages of the pandemic to achieve the following goals: (1) PROTECT healthcare workers, (2) INTERRUPT the virus, (3) MAINTAIN existing healthcare services while surging their capacity, and (4) SHIELD the most vulnerable from socioeconomic shocks. While decisive action must be taken now to blunt the impact of the pandemic in countries likely to be hit the hardest, many of the investments in the supply chain, compensation, dedicated supervision, continuous training and performance management necessary for rapid community response in a pandemic are the same as those required to achieve universal healthcare and prevent the next epidemic.
BMJ Global Health2020;5:e002550. doi:10.1136/bmjgh-2020-002550
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Aviation plays an important role in humanitarian operations around the world, especially in countries where overland transport is difficult or impossible due to insecurity, damaged or inadequate infrastructure, and challenging climatic conditions. Aviation allows the transport of humanitarian aid wo...rkers and humanitarian cargo to communities in some of the world’s most inaccessible places.
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The Planetary Health Report Card is a student-driven, metric-based initiative to inspire planetary health and sustainable healthcare education engagement in medical schools. In addition to inspiring expansion of medical school curricula, we hope to inspire medical schools to expand research efforts,... engage with communities most affected by climate change and environmental injustice, support passionate medical students who are trying to organize around planetary health at the institutional level, and implement sustainable practices. A set of metrics in these five category areas allows students and faculty to conduct a needs assessment at their medical school.
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In 2007, WHO warned that infectious diseases are emerging and re-emerging at a rate that has not been seen before. The potential for infectious diseases to spread rapidly results in high morbidity and mortality, causing a potential global public health treat of major concern.
Several factors are ...contributing to the (re)emergence of infectious diseases such as population growth, living in close contact with animals, frequent travelling, poverty, destructive ecological changes due to economic development and land use and climate change result in global warming.
Especially Africa is at a threat for (re)emerging infectious diseases due to the huge population growth (expected to reach 2.5 billion by 2050) with rapid urbanisation. Additionally, people across and beyond the continent are excessively mobile which is combined with a weak health system. Moreover, the risk of (re)emerging infectious disease is further heightened by three newly adopted continental initiatives: African Continental Free Trade Area, Free Movement of Persons and African Passport and Single African Air Transport Market.
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The guidance document provides a set of indicators for assessing the status of development, implementation and monitoring of key policy interventions for prevention and control of NCDs and injuries. It promotes city-level evidence based decision-making processes to identify gaps and take appropriate...s actions to strengthen responses. Additionally, using the standardized indicators can facilitate cross-city learning, sharing best practices and lessons learnt in implementing various policy interventions.
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Event-based surveillance (EBS) is defined as the organized collection, monitoring, assessment and interpretation of mainly unstructured ad hoc information regarding health events or risks, which may represent an acute risk to health. Both indicator-based and event-based surveillance components serve... the early warning and response (EWAR) function of the public health surveillance system. The Framework for Event-based Surveillance offers guidance to public health practitioners seeking to implement EBS at each administrative level in their countries.
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Essential Medicines are those that satisfy the priority health care needs of the population. They are selected with due regard to public health relevance, evidence on efficacy, safety and comparative cost-effectiveness. This edition of the Essential Medicines List (EML) 2017 for Ghana has been deriv...ed from its companion Standard Treatment Guidelines 2017 to ensure harmony in treatment, procurement and re-imbursements. The medicines listed have been coded according to the Health Commodity
Codes Catalogue of the Ministry of Health (2008) and their levels of use, based on the type of health facility, including midwifery practice, have been indicated.
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A training tutorial for healthcare professionals
This ECDC tutorial presents the fundamental concepts of personal protective equipment (PPE) and barrier nursing to support preparedness in hospitals across Europe. It provides practical information on the proper use of PPE at the point of care, inclu...ding technical requirements and procurement aspects
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Environmental Research Volume 151, November 2016, Pages 115-123
Dengue is the world’s most important arboviral disease in terms of number of people affected. Over the past 50 years, incidence increased 30-fold: there were approximately 390 million infections in 2010. Globalization, trade, travel,... demographic trends, and warming temperatures are associated with the recent spread of the primary vectors Aedes aegypti and Aedes albopictus and of dengue. Overall, models project that new geographic areas along the fringe of current geographic ranges for Aedes will become environmentally suitable for the mosquito’s lifecycle, and for dengue transmission. Many endemic countries where dengue is likely to spread further have underdeveloped health systems, increasing the substantial challenges of disease prevention and control. Control focuses on management of Aedes, although these efforts have typically had limited effectiveness in preventing outbreaks. New prevention and control efforts are needed to counter the potential consequences of climate change on the geographic range and incidence of dengue, including novel methods of vector control and dengue vaccines.
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The document, "Sustainable Management of Radiotherapy Facilities and Equipment," by WHO and IAEA, provides guidelines for managing radiotherapy equipment and facilities to ensure effective and safe cancer treatment. It covers essential aspects like preventive and corrective maintenance, funding, inf...rastructure, and staffing requirements for sustainable operation. The document aims to support radiotherapy departments, especially in low-resource settings, by outlining strategies for equipment procurement, maintenance, and replacement, emphasizing safety, quality assurance, and optimal patient care.
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As Uganda builds back from the COVID-19 shock, the Ugandan government is strengthening its commitment to a more gender-inclusive and sustainable economy. This report supports these efforts by describing the gendered impacts of COVID-19 and provides recommendations for Ugandan policy makers and World... Bank Group operations to ensure women’s participation in an inclusive and sustainable recovery. It presents gender-disaggregated data from three main sources: high-frequency phone surveys that track the impacts of the COVID-19 shock: one of Ugandan nationals conducted in June and one of refugees conducted in November 2020; interviews with 28 representatives of government institutions, development partners, and women’s organizations in Kampala and in rural areas; and a review of relevant policy and gray literature on climate change, the green economy, and women’s economic empowerment.
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Broken Links: Psychosocial support for people separated from family members (Training
module) and the corresponding Broken Links field guide are designed to support staff and
volunteers in a wide range of settings where they may be in contact with families who have
been separated from their loved... ones. The field guide and the training module outline the
causes and consequences of being separated from family members, as well as the types of
contact staff and volunteers might have with families affected by separation.
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This report provides an overview of the operations and activities of the WHO Country Office in Ukraine in 2023. Despite the acute health impacts of the war in Ukraine, the Country Office continued its work according to its core mandate. WHO supported the Government of Ukraine in managing the health ...emergency and pursued existing priorities set out in WHO’s Thirteenth General Programme of Work 2019–2023, the European Programme of Work 2020–2025, and the Biennial Collaborative Agreement 2022–2023 signed with the Government of Ukraine. The report presents the achievements of the WHO Country Office in Ukraine in 2023 in the context of the war’s impact on the lives, health, and well-being of Ukrainians.
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The Mapping Antimicrobial Resistance and Antimicrobial Use Partnership (MAAP) project has conducted a multi-year, multi-country study that provides stark insights on the under-reported depth of the antimicrobial resistance (AMR) crisis across Africa and lays out urgent policy recommendations to addr...ess the emergency.
MAAP reviewed 819,584 AMR records from 2016-2019, from 205 laboratories across Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Eswatini, Gabon, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. MAAP also reviewed data from 327 hospital and community pharmacies and 16 national-level AMC datasets.
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Version dated April 1st, 2020.
The flow of migrants and refugees from Venezuela constitutes the largest mobilization of people in the history of Latin America. By March 2020, more than 4.9 million Venezuelans have left their country and from these, more than 4.1 million have been mobilized to count...ries in Latin America and the Caribbean. The motives for this mobilization are diverse, but those related to health care issues stand out, among which is the condition of living with HIV/AIDS. In the situation of demand for medical care that COVID-19 has generated, it is much more difficult to receive attention for people who are not included in the health systems of countries that are recipient due to the limitations that their migratory status may impose.
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Diabetes is a major public health problem. The rising incidence of Diabetes Type 2 is related to the effects of urbanization and unhealthy lifestyles. Research studies show that healthy eating and regular physical activity can prevent or delay the onset of Diabetes Type 2, even in high-risk individu...als.
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In most malaria-endemic countries, temperatures frequently exceed the recommended storage temperatures for malaria RDTs. Correct storage of the RDTs may be difficult, especially during transport and in locations where air-conditioning is unavailable.
This publication is intended to support health p...ersonnel who use RDTs. It describes the basic principles for management and storage of RDT stock; outlines practical solutions for protecting RDTs against high temperatures during storage and transport; and describes how to manage waste generated from RDT use in health clinics and central and peripheral storage facilities.
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• provide scientific information on the safety, efficacy, and quality control/ quality assurance of widely used medicinal plants, in order to facilitate their appropriate use in Member States;
• provide models to assist Member States in developing their own mono- graphs or formularies for these... or other herbal medicines; and
• facilitate information exchange among Member States.
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Second editon. This document serves only as a guide to good practice and may help to harmonize surveillance activities. The purpose of this manual is to be a handy reference for key elements and contact information for all communicable diseases / syndromes associated with current WHO control program...mes. It should be particularly useful at the Ministry of Health level in Member States, in approaching integrated surveillance of communicable diseases / syndromes.
The document is intended to be updated on a regular basis. This reflects the changing nature of infectious diseases and accompanying diagnostic and surveillance methods. It also reflects the multidisciplinary nature of disease surveillance in which many different programmes and partners are involved.
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Guiding framework for development cooperation, Working paper 2017.
This document was drawn up on the basis of expert publications and inputs from partners in the
GIZ regional programme Psychosocial Support for Syrian and Iraqi Refugees and Internally
Displaced People1 in order to serve as guidanc...e in the design, implementation and assessment of
psychosocial support measures for refugees in the context of the crises in Syria and Iraq. It is
aimed at actors from the MHPSS sector working with refugees in the Middle East and at ministries
and academic/scientific institutions in the context of the Syria and Iraq crises.
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