Nat Med (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41591-021-01381-y
Biweekly situation reports
Background paper 7
The Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response
May 2021
In 2019, an estimated 10 million individuals fell ill with tuberculosis (TB) and 3 million of them were not reported to have beendiagnosed and notified. The gap is proportionately even wider for drug-resistant TB. Of the estimated 465 000 patients with rifampicin-resistant and multi-drug resistant T...B (RR/MDR-TB), only 206 030 (44%) were diagnosed and notified.For the first time, the World Health Organization (WHO) has provided global estimates of the incidence of isoniazid resistance: in 2019, there were 1.4 million incident cases of isoniazid-resistant TB, of which 1.1 million were susceptible to rifampicin. Most of these people were not diagnosed with drug-resistant TB and did not receive appropriate treatment.
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Tuberculosis (TB) is, and should be, a curable disease; however, each year significant numbers of patients acquire or develop drug-resistant TB, which has a much lower cure rate. Patients with drug-resistant TB have a high prevalence of symptoms; hence, staff caring for these patients should h...ave some familiarity with palliative care, so that general palliative care principles are available to all patients. The timely identification, and addressing, of adverse events occurring during the treatment course is considered as general palliative care for those receiving curative treatment. This publication summarizes the general palliative care approach, which is recommended for use in settings and services that occasionally treat palliative care patients, but do not provide palliative care as the main focus of their work. The review focuses on 18 high TB priority countries of the WHO European Region.
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The procurement of essential medicines and other health products is a critical function in support of the effective discharge of WHO’s mandate, and WHO values the importance of the quality of essential medicines and health products that are supplied to countries. The first World Health Assembly in... 1948 recognized the need to establish a procurement service at WHO, and recommended setting up an office “to give advice on the procurement of essential drugs, biological products and other medical supplies”.
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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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Countries around the world are facing the challenge of increased demand for care of people with COVID-19, compounded by fear, misinformation and limitations on movement that disrupt the delivery of health care for all conditions. Maintaining essential health services: operational guidance for the CO...VID-19 context recommends practical actions that countries can take at national, subregional and local levels to reorganize and safely maintain access to high-quality, essential health services in the pandemic context. It also outlines sample indicators for monitoring essential health services, and describes considerations on when to stop and restart services as COVID-19 transmission recedes and surges.
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Projects from around the world
The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) is one of the most complex and long-standing humanitarian crises in Africa. By the end of 2020, some 940,421 Congolese refugees and asylum seekers were hosted across the African continent. Ongoing conflicts in eastern DRC, as well as intercommunal violence,... continue to cause forced displacement within the DRC and into neighbouring countries, along with tragic loss of human life and destruction of communities.
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What school closures under COVID-19 mean for children and young people in
crisis-affected contexts
23 March 2021
The meeting addressed the last key area, that is, determining the best method or combination of diagnostic methods for a control programme for S. stercoralis infections in humans.
Dr Montresor’s presentation highlighted that while there is currently no “gold standard” for the... diagnosis of S. stercoralis, there is a felt urgency to optimize diagnostic regimens that are currently available, and in the context of population-based testing (as opposed to individual focused diagnostics in clinical settings).
In other words, the diagnostic test(s) should have good accuracy, but we should remember that in public health we do not aim at individual diagnosis: rather, we need a tool that should help to estimate the prevalence in a population.
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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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Reports of antimicrobial-resistant (AMR) microorganisms are increasing globally, threatening to render existing treatments ineffective against many infectious diseases. In Africa, AMR has already been documented to be a problem for human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and the pathogens that cause mala...ria, tuberculosis (TB), typhoid, cholera, meningitis, gonorrhoea and dysentery. Recognizing the urgent need for action, the 2016 United Nations (UN) General Assembly approved a resolution to ensure sustained and effective global action to address AMR.
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Executive summary On 27th and 28th April 2021, the division of Disease Control and Prevention in collaboration with Public Health England, organized a virtual consultative meeting as part of the consultations with Member States and partners for the development of the Africa CDC five years strategic ...plan for the prevention and control of Non-communicable Diseases … Report: Expert and stakeholder virtual consultation meeting to develop the Africa CDC Non-Communicable Diseases and Mental Health Strategy
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