To enhance health co-benefits across urban policies which tackle air pollution and climate change, WHO, in cooperation with various international, national, and local partners, implemented the Urban Health Initiative (UHI) pilot project in Accra, Ghana. The Initiative prompted the health sector to u...se its influential position to demonstrate to decision-makers and the public the full range of health, environmental and economic benefits that can be achieved from implementing local emission reduction and energy access policies and strategies. Policy tracking, although not always considered, is a fundamental component of this procedure. It assesses the planning, implementation and progress of a policy to refine or adjust policies with the final objective of increasing the likelihood of the policy being successful. This report is an outcome of the last component of the UHI model process, Policy tracking and monitoring outcomes. The report proposes a framework for tracking urban health policies, with a special focus on the impacts of air quality and energy access on human health and well-being in African countries, giving some examples from the pilot project in Accra. The report also provides resources to survey air quality in cities and other tools to assess public health and the environmental impacts of urban policies and monitor or track their effects.
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Available in Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian and Spanish. You can download a summary of the main report and background documents!
The report demonstrates that the current system—at both national and international levels— was not adequate to protect people from COVID-19. The time it t...ook from the reporting of a cluster of cases of pneumonia of unknown origin in mid-late December 2019 to a Public Health Emergency of International Concern being declared was too long. February 2020 was also a lost month when many more countries could have taken steps to contain the spread of SARS-CoV-2 and forestall the global health, social, and economic catastrophe that continues its grip. The Panel finds that the system as it stands now is clearly unfit to prevent another novel and highly infectious pathogen, which could emerge at any time, from developing into a pandemic.
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Research results of sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) prevention and response before, during and after disasters in Indonesia, Lao PDR and the Philippines
This report contributes new evidence on why and how sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) risks increase during humanitarian disasters.... It details how humanitarian actors can better prevent and respond to such escalation of SGBV, and better meet the needs of affected women, girls, men and boys. This research is based on community views of disaster-affected women, adolescent girls, men and adolescent boys in three South-East Asian countries: Indonesia, Lao PDR and the Philippines.
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The checklist tool described in this handbook is intended for EU/EEA public health authorities who need to assess the capacity for communicable disease prevention and control at migrant reception/detention centres hosting migrants for weeks/months (medium-term) in order to identify gaps and set prio...rities for development.
Using this tool, the aim is to monitor and support capacity development to prevent the onset and improve the management of communicable disease outbreaks at medium-term migration reception/detention centres, both on a day-to-day basis and in the event of a sudden influx of migrants.
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La pandémie actuelle de COVID-19 entraîne des difficultés exceptionnelles et sans précédent pour les autorités compétentesa responsables des systèmes nationaux decontrôle de la sécurité sanitaire des alimentsb, qui sont tenues de continuer à assurer des fonct...ions et des activités de routine en se conformant aux règlements nationaux et aux recommandations internationales. Dans de nombreux pays, le personnel employé par les autorités compétentes travaille généralement à domicile car le télétravail est devenu la norme et toutes les réunions en présentiel sont annulées ou sont réorganisées sous forme de téléconférence. Il est difficile de maintenir, sans interruption, les activités de routine telles que l’inspection des entreprises du secteur alimentaire, la certification des exportations, le contrôle des denrées alimentaires importées, le suivi et la surveillance de la sécurité de la chaîne d’approvisionnement alimentaire, l’échantillonnage et l’analyse des aliments, la gestion des incidents alimentaires, les conseils sur la sécurité sanitaire des aliments et la réglementation relative aux denrées alimentaires à l’intention de l’industrie et la communication au grand public sur les questions relatives à la sécurité sanitaire des aliments.
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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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Human Rights, Minimum Standards and Monitoring at the European and International Levels
Nature Reviews Microbiology Vol. 17 (2019)pp.51-62
Antimicrobial susceptibility testing (AST) technologies help to accelerate the
initiation of targeted antimicrobial therapy for patients with infections and could potentially
extend the lifespan of current narrow- spectrum antimicrobials. Althoug...h conceptually new and
rapid AST technologies have been described, including new phenotyping methods, digital
imaging and genomic approaches, there is no single major, or broadly accepted, technological
breakthrough that leads the field of rapid AST platform development
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The World Health Organization Regional Office for Africa (WHO AFRO), in accordance with recommendations from various WHO committees, has developed three flagship programmes to support Member States in the African region to prepare for, detect and respond to public health emergencies. They are the re...sult of extensive consultations with more than 30 African government ministers, technical actors, partners across the continent as well as regional institutions such as the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC), whose contributions have shaped the priority activities. This report provides the second quarterly summary of progress in implementing the flagship programmes.
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Cryptococcal disease is one of the most common opportunistic infections among people living with advanced HIV disease and is a major contributor to severe illness, morbidity, and mortality, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa.
These guidelines update the recommendations that were first released i...n 2018 on diagnosing, preventing, and managing cryptococcal disease. In response to important new evidence that became available in 2021, these new guidelines strongly recommend a single high dose of liposomal amphotericin B as part of the preferred induction regimen for the treatment of cryptococcal meningitis in people living with HIV. This simplified regimen - a single high dose of liposomal amphotericin B paired with other standard medicines (flucytosine and fluconazole) - is as effective as the previous WHO standard of care, with the benefits of lower toxicity and fewer monitoring demands.
The objective of these guidelines is to provide updated, evidence-informed recommendations for treating adults, adolescents and children living with HIV who have cryptococcal disease. These guidelines are aimed at HIV programme managers, policymakers, national treatment advisory boards, implementing partners and health-care professionals providing care for people living with HIV in resource-limited settings with a high burden of cryptococcal disease.
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This is the Technical Annex for the BRACED report: Measuring changes in household resilience as a result of BRACED activities in Myanmar.
This external performance evaluation of the Malawi Girls’ Empowerment through Education and Health Activity (ASPIRE), conducted 2.5 years after ASPIRE began, establishes the activity’s progress against its objectives, proposes adaptations for the final year, and captures lessons for application ...in future girls’ empowerment, health, and education programming in Malawi.
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