The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has created a global and gendered crisis that is compounding existing inequalities and disproportionately affecting girls and women. Emerging evidence from the COVID-19 crisis in 2020 shows school closures, disruptions in essential services and rising... poverty contributed to girls’ increased risk of female genital mutilation (FGM). School closures limited the monitoring and reporting of cases of FGM. Rising household monetary poverty may have contributed to families adopting negative coping mechanisms, including having girls undergo FGM as a precursor to marriage to reduce household costs. A report from the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) estimates 2 million additional cases of FGM by 2030 due to the pandemic.
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April 19,2021
MEDBOX Issue Brief no.12
The primary audience of this report with the compendium of resources are youth engagement practitioners in the Red Cross Red Crescent National Societies as well as technical experts and policy makers across the humanitarian landscape that thrive for meaningful interventions with and for children, ad...olescents, and young adults experiencing the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.
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Nat Med (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41591-021-01381-y
Member States have requested WHO policy guidance on how to facilitate the implementation of national AMS activities in an integrated and programmatic approach. This policy guidance responds to that demand from Member States and is anchored in public health guiding principles in the human health sect...or. It aims to provide a set of evidence-based and pragmatic recommendations to drive comprehensive and integrated AMS activities under the purview of a central national coordination unit, National AMR steering or coordinating committees or other equivalent national authorities.
Available in English, French, Spanish, Russian, Arabic, Chinese
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COVID-19 infection affects all age groups including newborns, however, literature is scarce on the fetal and neonatal outcomes of babies exposed in-utero, especially in Africa. The objectiveof this study was to document the perinatal outcomes of COVID-19 pregnancies and del...iveries that occurredduring the pandemic in Nigeria.
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Background: Healthcare workers’ mental health was affected by SARS-CoV-2 pandemic.
Aim: To evaluate healthcare workers’ mental health and its associated factors during the pandemic in Chile. Material and Methods: An online self-reported questionnaire was designed including the Goldberg Healt...h Questionnaire, the Patient Health
Questionnaire, (PHQ-9), and the Columbia-Suicide Severity Rating Scale among other questions. It was sent to 28,038 healthcare workers.
Results: The questionnaire was answered by 1,934 participants, with a median age of 38 years (74% women). Seventy five percent were professionals, and 48% worked at a hospital. Fifty nine percent of respondents had a risk of having a mental health disorder, and 73% had depressive symptoms. Significant associations were found with sex, workplace, and some of the relevant experiences during the pandemic. Fifty one
percent reported the need for mental health support, and 38% of them received it.
Conclusions: There is a high percentage of health workers with symptoms of psychological distress, depression, and suicidal ideas. The gender approach is essential to understand the important differences found. Many health workers who required mental health care did not seek or received it.
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The meningitis road map has been designated as a flagship global strategy of the WHO’s Thirteenth General Programme of Work, 2019–2023 and is an essential component in achieving universal health coverage.
The road map will reinforce and combine with wider initiatives, such as those aimed at s...trengthening primary health care and health systems, increasing immunization coverage, improving global health security, fighting antimicrobial resistance and advocating for the rights of persons with disabilities. It will complement other global control strategies, such as those addressing sepsis, pneumonia, tuberculosis and HIV. Implementation will be a challenge for all countries across the world, but especially in resource-poor settings where the burden of meningitis is greatest. The targets for the visionary and strategic goals will be adapted to regional and local contexts.
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La méningite est mortelle et débilitante ; elle frappe brutalement ; elle a de graves conséquences sanitaires, économiques et sociales et touche tous les âges de la vie dans tous les pays du monde. La méningite bactérienne peut être à l’origine d’épidémies, entraîner la mort dans les... 24 heures et un patient sur cinq peut rester handicapé à vie à la suite d’une infection. La plupart des cas et des décès dus à la méningite pourraient être évités par la vaccination mais les progrès obtenus pour la vaincre sont bien moins rapides que ceux réalisés contre d’autres maladies à prévention vaccinale.
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La meningitis es una enfermedad mortal y debilitante; golpea rápidamente, conlleva graves consecuencias sanitarias, económicas y sociales, y afecta a personas de todas las edades y en todos los países del mundo. La meningitis bacteriana puede provocar epidemias, ocasionar la muerte en 24 horas y ...dejar a una de cada cinco personas afectadas, con discapacidad permanente después de la infección. Muchos casos de meningitis y defunciones conexas son prevenibles mediante vacunación, pero los progresos para derrotar a la meningitis están rezagados respecto de otras enfermedades prevenibles mediante vacunación.
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These guidelines provide new and updated recommendations on the use of point-of-care testing in children under 18 months of age and point-of-care tests to monitor treatment in people living with HIV; the treatment monitoring algorithm; and timing of antiretroviral therapy (ART) among people living w...ith HIV who are being treated for tuberculosis.
New recommendations launched today outline key new actions that countries can take to improve the delivery of HIV testing, treatment and care services by providing greater options for differentiated approaches such as, supporting HIV treatment start in the community, ensuring that children are diagnosed and treated early, and that viral load treatment monitoring is more accessible, focused and triggers clinical action
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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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COVID-19 has heavily emphasized how contact tracing is crucial for managing outbreaks, and as part of the strategy for adjusting, and eventually lifting, lockdowns and other stringent public health and social measures. As the pandemic develops further, it will be a core measure to manage further wav...es of infection. In early June 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) convened an online global consultation on contact tracing in the context of COVID-19, looking at the lessons of the pandemic to date; known and emerging best practices; and the measures necessary for urgent implementation, scale-up, maintenance and enhancement of contact tracing activities.
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