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 report presents the latest data on more than 50 health-related Sustainable Development Goal and "triple billion" target indicators. The 2021 edition includes preliminary estimates for global excess deaths attributable to COVID-19 for 2020 and the state of global and regional health trends from 2...000-2019. It also focuses on persistent health inequalities and data gaps that have been accentuated by the pandemic, with a call to urgently invest in health information systems to ensure the world is better prepared with better data.
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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 an infectious disease that usually affects the lungs, though it can affect any organ in the body. It can develop when bacteria spread through droplets in the air. TB can be fatal, but in many cases, TB is preventable and treatable. This report examines the human rights impact of... the prevalence of Tuberculosis (TB) and Multi-drug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) among the Indigenous San peoples of Namibia. Combining political economy and root-cause methodology, the report explores the socioeconomic factors that make the San vulnerable to TB and limit their access to adequate health services.
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The 10 recommendations in the COP26 Special Report on Climate Change and Health propose a set of priority actions from the global health community to governments and policy makers, calling on them to act with urgency on the current climate and health crises.
The recommendations were developed in ...consultation with over 150 organizations and 400 experts and health professionals. They are intended to inform governments and other stakeholders ahead of the 26th Conference of the Parties (COP26) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and to highlight various opportunities for governments to prioritize health and equity in the international climate movement and sustainable development agenda. Each recommendation comes with a selection of resources and case studies to help inspire and guide policymakers and practitioners in implementing the suggested solutions
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This report aims to support countries in the necessary transition toward healthier, more sustainable diets by integrating biodiversity in food-based interventions to support nutrition and health. It is intended to help guide decision-makers in the health, nutrition and other sectors, to:
Consider... the important role of biodiversity in food systems for the development of integrated interventions to support healthy, diverse and sustainable diets;
To focus investments and country support for more comprehensive, coordinated and cross-cutting public health and nutrition projects and policies; and
To strengthen the resilience of food systems, health systems, and societies, each of which are each increasingly compromised by widespread ecological degradation, biodiversity loss and climate change.
Biodiversity at every level (genetic, species and ecosystem level) is a foundational pillar for food security, nutrition, and dietary quality. It is the basic source of variety in essential foods, nutrients, vitamins and minerals, and medicines, and underpins life-sustaining ecosystem services. It is a core environmental determinant of health, often a vital ingredient of healthy nutritional outcomes and livelihoods, gender equality, social equity, and other health determinants.
Biodiversity can play a more prominent role in planning for nutritional outcomes in various ways, e.g. by facilitating the production of nutritious fruits and plant products, sustaining livelihoods through more efficient production and increasing the diversity of products available in markets. This Guidance presents and expands on six core building blocks for mainstreaming biodiversity for nutrition and health:
Cross-sectoral knowledge development and knowledge co-production;
Enabling environments;
Integration;
Conservation and the wider use of biodiversity;
Education and awareness-raising;
Monitoring and evaluation;
This WHO report builds on an unprecedented opportunity to mainstream biodiversity in order to support healthy and sustainable diets, and offers the necessary technical guidance to catalyze and support a transformation of the global food system and transition to healthier, more sustainable diets.
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his practical Guide serves as a companion to the “WHO guideline: recommendations on digital interventions for health system strengthening” and provides a systematic process for countries to develop a costed implementation plan for digital health within one or more health programme areas, drawing... guidance from the WHO guideline–recommended digital health interventions, providing direction to ensure investments are needs-based and contribute effective and interoperable systems aligned with national digital architecture, country readiness, health system and policy goals.
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This report summarizes the latest scientific knowledge on the links between exposure to air pollution and adverse health effects in children. It is intended to inform and motivate individual and collective action by health care professionals to prevent damage to children’s health from exposure to ...air pollution.
Air pollution is a major environmental health threat. Exposure to fine particles in both the ambient environment and in the household causes about seven million premature deaths each year. Ambient air pollution alone imposes enormous costs on the global economy, amounting to more than US$ 5 trillion in total welfare losses in 2013.
This public health crisis is receiving more attention, but one critical aspect is often overlooked: how air pollution affects children in uniquely damaging ways. Recent data released by the World Health Organization (WHO) show that air pollution has a vast and terrible impact on child health and survival. Globally, 93% of all children live in environments with air pollution levels above the WHO guidelines (see the full report, Air pollution and child health: prescribing clean air. More than one in every four deaths of children under 5 years of age is directly or indirectly related to environmental risks. Both ambient air pollution and household air pollution contribute to respiratory tract infections that resulted in 543 000 deaths in children under the age of 5 years in 2016.
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As the culminating volume in the DCP3 series, volume 9 will provide an overview of DCP3 findings and methods, a summary of messages and substantive lessons to be taken from DCP3, and a further discussion of cross-cutting and synthesizing topics across the first eight volumes. The introductory chapte...rs (1-3) in this volume take as their starting point the elements of the Essential Packages presented in the overview chapters of each volume. First, the chapter on intersectoral policy priorities for health includes fiscal and intersectoral policies and assembles a subset of the population policies and applies strict criteria for a low-income setting in order to propose a "highest-priority" essential package. Second, the chapter on packages of care and delivery platforms for universal health coverage (UHC) includes health sector interventions, primarily clinical and public health services, and uses the same approach to propose a highest priority package of interventions and policies that meet similar criteria, provides cost estimates, and describes a pathway to UHC.
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This tool is a living document that provides guidance on good partnership practices that promote strong relationships between civil society organizations and government representatives on engaging men and boys in gender equality and sexual and reproductive health and rights
(SRHR). ...Its goal is to strengthen these partnerships in order to enable the scale up and/or institutionalization of evidence-based approaches to engaging men and boys.
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Submitted to the US Agency for International Development by the
Systems for Improved Access to Pharmaceuticals and Services (SIAPS) Program.
This manual provides a framework to identify problems and design interventions to improve access to and use of medicines for children. It is a resource for ...both health policy makers and health system managers and presents a structured approach to the steps introduced in the framework in the context of child health.
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In 2005, the World Health Organization (WHO) Member States adopted the revised International
Health Regulations (IHR) (2005). The Regulations provide a unique public health framework in the
form of obligations and recommendations that enable countries to better p...revent, prepare for and
respond to public health events and emergencies of potential international concern, including chemical events.
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Comprehensive public health action on population ageing is urgently needed. This will require fundamental shifts, not just in the things we do, but in how we think about ageing itself. The World report on ageing and health outlines a framework for action to foster Healthy Ageing built around the new... concept of functional ability. Making these investments will have valuable social and economic returns, both in terms of health and wellbeing of older people and in enabling their on-going participation in society
Executive summaries : Arabic; Chinese; English; French; German; Japanese; Portuguese; Russian; Spanish
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This Toolkit is intended to guide humanitarian programme managers and healthcare providers to ensure that sexual and reproductive health interventions put into place both during and after a crisis are responsive to the unique needs of adolescents.
Medicinal plants occupied an important position in the socio-cultural, spiritual and medicinal arena of rural people of India. T
The present report is based on contribution made by members of the task force and many other experts on medicinal plants. We hope the report on implementation will promot...e sustainable and equitable development of medicinal plants sector provide "Health for All", boost exports, and will improve livelihood of the people and green the country for the present and the
generation to come.
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The Active Learning Package is designed to provide methodology, substantive support and practical instruction for the training of health personnel in Health as Bridge for Peace issues. https://www.who.int/hac/techguidance/hbp/active_training_package/en/index5.html
There are indigenous communities at high risk in every country of the region. At stake are the lives of 45 million people who belong to more than 800 indigenous peoples. Of these, some 100 are spread across several countries, around 200 maintain voluntary isolation or are in initial contact, and nea...rly 500 are at risk of disappearing due to their reduced numbers. Due to their lower immune resistance, their lack of access to hospital care and the increasing penetration of extractive activities in their territories, indigenous communities in voluntary isolation or in initial contact are cause for particular concern.
Far from hospitals and the news cameras, indigenous people in Latin American become ill and die without access to the means needed to protect themselves. They face the pandemic in conditions of social exclusion, racism and discrimination, which highlights historical inequalities and extreme precariousness in basic and health services.
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he WHO global disability action plan 2014-2021 is a significant step towards achieving health and well-being and human rights for people with disabilities. The action plan was endorsed by WHO Member States in 2014 and calls for them to remove barriers and improve access to health services and progra...mmes; strengthen and extend rehabilitation, assistive devices and support services, and community-based rehabilitation; and enhance collection of relevant and internationally comparable data on disability, and research on disability and related services. Achieving the objectives of the action plan better enables people with disabilities to fulfil their aspirations in all aspects of life.
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People with disabilities experience significant health inequalities. In Malawi, where most individuals live in low-income rural settings, many of these inequalities are exacerbated by restricted access to health care services. This qualitative study explores the barriers to health care access experi...enced by individuals with a mobility or sensory impairment, or both, living in rural villages in Dowa district, central Malawi. In addition, the impact of a chronic lung condition, alongside a mobility or sensory impairment, on health care accessibility is explored.
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The Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) has had a continuous and robust impact on world health. The resulting COVID-19 pandemic has had a devastating physical, mental and fiscal impact on the millions of people living with noncommunicable diseases (NCDs), as they have a higher risk of severe illness... and death from COVID-19. COVID-19 has been associated with an
excess in all-cause and cardiovascular disease (CVD) mortality beyond that related to the infection itself and its immediate consequences. Studies in the
United Kingdom (UK) and United States of America (USA) have clearly shown increasing deaths from ischemic heart disease, stroke and hypertensive disease due to COVID-19. Overall, the impact has been greater in individuals with lower socioeconomic status, even in high income nations.
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