The recommendations cover the level of blood pressure to start medication, what type of medicine or combination of medicines to use, the target blood pressure level, and how often to have follow-up checks on blood pressure. In addition, the guideline provides the basis for how physicians and other h...ealth workers can contribute to improving hypertension detection and management.
more
The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in a double shock - health and economic. As of March 1, 2021, COVID-19 has cost more than 2.5 million lives and triggered an economic recession surpassing any economic downturn since World War II.
Part I of this paper explores the impact of this current macro-fisc...al outlook on the three primary sources of health spending. Drawing on experiences from previous economic crises, scenario analyses suggest a fall in government per capita spending on health in 2021 and 2022 unless governments make bold choices to increase the share of health in general government spending.
Part II of the paper discusses policy options to meet the spending needs in health. These options encompass strategies to make fiscal adjustments work and channel funds where they are most needed, as well as policies to stabilize the balance sheets of social health insurance (SHI) schemes. The paper explains how the health sector can play an active role in expanding fiscal space, contributing to tax reforms, most importantly pro-health taxes, and mobilizing and absorbing external financing, including debt relief.
more
The 2021 Financing for Sustainable Development Report responds to the request made by Member States to review the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on nancing for sustainable development, and to propose recommendations to rebuild better. The report underlines the need for policy actions to ensure e e...ctive support until the recovery is rmly underway. Its thematic chapter discusses the systemic and interlinked nature of risk in a tightly intertwined world, and the importance of providing nancing for risk reduction and resilience and nancing that is risk-informed and resilient. With the collaboration of more than 60 agencies of the United Nations system and partner international organizations, the report provides much needed guidance to Member States to take action towards a more resilient future.
more
UNAIDS leads and inspires the world to achieve its shared vision of zero new HIV infections, zero discrimination and zero AIDS-related deaths. It unites the efforts of 11 UN Cosponsor organizations- UNHCR, UNICEF, WFP, UNDP,UNFPA, UNODC, UN Women, ILO, UNESCO, WHO and the World Bank- and a Secretari...at.
more
The UK government hosted the Global Vaccine Summit on June 4, 2020 under the patronage of the Rt. Hon. Boris Johnson, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. The meeting was held by videoconference in light of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. 2. The Summit brought... together more than 300 people, including 42 Heads of State and Government. 62 countries were represented, notably 14 Gavi implementing countries, all of the G7 nations and 19 governments of the G20. Eminent participants also included H.E. Antonio Guterres, Secretary-General of the United Nations; H.E. Moussa Faki Mahamat, Chairperson of the African Union Commission; H.E. Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General; H.E. Henrietta Fore, UNICEF Executive Director; Bill Gates, Co-Chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation; Ministers from implementing and donor countries; CEOs of vaccine manufacturing companies and private sector partners; leaders of UN and other international agencies; senior civil society representatives; and Gavi champions. A full list of the participants can be found in Annex.
more
Health facilities in the Region of the Americas frequently suffer the effects of health emergencies and disasters, which jeopardize their ability to provide services to the population. The STAR-H methodology helps staff responsible for health emergency and disaster risk management to identify and as...sess risks as part of strategic planning to improve facility preparedness. It is intended to help them develop, with a multi-hazard approach, a response framework with operating procedures to deal with hazards of any type, scale, or frequency; determine roles and responsibilities; facilitate the effective use of resources; undertake strategic planning exercises, and improve the preparedness of facilities to effectively respond to and recover from impacts. This methodology is designed for use in health facilities of any size and capacity, and makes it possible to generate historical reports and national or subnational risk profiles. This information can be used to develop an effective health emergency and disaster risk management program.
more
Background: Atherosclerotic cardiovascular diseases (ASCVD) including myocardial infarction, stroke and peripheral arterial disease continue to be major causes of premature death, disability and healthcare expenditure globally. Preventing the accumulation of cholesterol-containing atherogenic lipopr...oteins in the vessel wall is central to any healthcare strategy to prevent ASCVD. Advances in current concepts about reducing cumulative exposure to apolipoprotein B (apo B) cholesterol-containing lipoproteins and the emergence of novel therapies provide new opportunities to better prevent ASCVD. The present update of the World Heart Federation Cholesterol Roadmap provides a conceptual framework for the development of national policies and health systems approaches, so that potential roadblocks to cholesterol management and thus ASCVD prevention can be overcome.
more
Anaemia is a serious global public health problem that particularly affects young children, menstruating adolescent girls and women, and pregnant and postpartum women. It is a condition in which the number of red blood cells or the haemoglobin concentration within them is lower than normal, affectin...g the blood’s ability to carry oxygen to the body’s tissues.
To reliably monitor the prevalence of anaemia at a population level, it is vital to measure the haemoglobin concentration in an accurate and precise way. In large-scale surveys, however, haemoglobin is most commonly measured using single-drop capillary blood specimens in point-of-care devices. Emerging evidence suggests that the use of single-drop capillary blood can introduce random and/or systematic errors, which may lead to inaccurate estimates, complicating effective anaemia programming.
This technical brief describes the current best practices for haemoglobin measurement, providing guidance to help plan or implement field surveys to assess anaemia at a population level. Continuing work to review emerging evidence is led by members of the WHO-UNICEF Technical Expert Advisory group on nutrition Monitoring (TEAM).
more
Around the world, more than 2 billion people lack access to safely managed water, sanitation and hygiene services, with conflicts and climate change exacerbating the issue.
Unsafe and insufficient WASH facilities, especially in rural and remote areas, can lead to increased health complications fo...r older people, persons with disabilities and children. They also reinforce cycles of poverty, inequality and deprivation – particularly for women, children and marginalized groups, who are disproportionately impacted by a lack of equitable access to water and sanitation.
Launched on World Water Day, the guidelines address the knowledge gap on ways to practically implement inclusive approaches to WASH infrastructure development, particularly in developing countries and fragile contexts.
more
Evidence-based psychological interventions are an important part of health, social, protection and education services and can help increase access to effective mental health treatments and progression towards universal health coverage.
This manual provides managers and others responsible for plan...ning and delivering services with practical guidance on how to implement manualized psychological interventions for adults, adolescents and children. It covers the five key implementation steps: make an implementation plan; adapt for context; prepare the workforce; identify, assess and support potential beneficiaries; and monitor and evaluate the service.
more
UNFPA supports the Youth Health Line (YHL), launched in 2012, as a nationwide, youth friendly health service to provide information and counseling for adolescents and youth on issues related to their health and reproductive health. The YHL is providing a vital service to young people around the coun...try who are dialing the toll-free number ‘120’ from any phone to speak to a professionally trained youth health counselor. These conversations are confidential, free of judgment, and do not require parental consent. The average reach of the YHL per year is 120,000 adolescents and youth served by full-time male and female counselors.
This Standard Operating Procedure for YHL provides a critical resource for the administration and day-to-day management. The SOP is designed to provide direction to all staff responsible for carrying out the administrative and managerial functions of the YHL. The SOP is intended to guide UNFPA Implementing Partners in running the YHL with a consistent approach to ensure improved access and quality of services provided to adolescents and youth in Afghanistan.
more
Since 2016, the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) has been promoting the implementation of the HEARTS Initiative in the Americas as a regional adaptation of the World Health Organization's Global HEARTS Initiative. During this time, 33 countries in the Region of the Americas have committed to ...implementing HEARTS, and PAHO has developed many technical resources to support them. Most of these resources are clinical tools for primary healthcare teams and focus on quality improvement. This compendium aims to group all these clinical tools in a single document under a simple format that facilitates their practical implementation in daily clinical practice. The reader will notice that each tool is summarized on a single page and presented in a modular format. Therefore, each tool can be used together or separately as needed. In addition, at the bottom of each tool, the reader will find the references and hyperlinks to access full texts in case deeper knowledge is required.
more
Medical devices are used for the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of illness and diseases and for rehabilitation. WHO developed guidance on medical device donation in 2011, which has been now reviewed, with new evidence, new references on considerations for medical device solicitation and provisi...on, risks associated with inappropriate donations, the responsibilities of donors and recipient, and the steps they should follow before, during and after a donation. It includes three sections: description of major problems that may be faced during the donation process, listing of best practices for donors and recipients and addressing situations requiring special attention. It also has three annexes for further reading: the criteria for the acceptability of a donation, literature review on donations of medical devices between 2010 and 2023 and a flyer. This document is intended to improve the quality of medical devices donations, including medical equipment, single-use medical devices and in-vitro diagnostics, to provide maximum benefit to all stakeholders. The considerations can be used to develop institutional or national policies and regulations for medical devices donations. This document is intended for use by any organization, expert or practitioner involved in the donation, procurement, management of medical devices, including health workers, biomedical engineers, health managers, policymakers, donors, nongovernmental organizations and academic institutions.
more
Asthma is the most common non-communicable disease in children and remains one of the most common throughout the life course. The great majority of the burden of this disease is seen in low-income and middle-income countries (LMICs), which have disproportionately high asthma-related mortality relati...ve to asthma prevalence. This is particularly true for many countries in sub-Saharan Africa. Although inhaled asthma treatments (particularly those containing inhaled corticosteroids) markedly reduce asthma morbidity and mortality, a substantial proportion of the children, adolescents, and adults with asthma in LMICs do not get to benefit from these, due to poor availability and affordability. In this review, we consider the reality faced by clinicians managing asthma in the primary and secondary care in sub-Saharan Africa and suggest how we might go about making diagnosis and treatment decisions in a range of resource-constrained scenarios. We also provide recommendations for research and policy, to help bridge the gap between current practice in sub-Saharan Africa and Global Initiative for Asthma (GINA) recommended diagnostic processes and treatment for children, adolescents, and adults with asthma.
more
Asthma is the most common noncommunicable disease in children, and among the most common in adults. According to the most recent estimates from the Global Asthma Network Phase I study, around one in 10 children and adults have symptoms of asthma and one in 20 school-aged children have severe asthma ...symptoms, with marked variations in prevalence and in prevalence trends between countries and regions of the world. The Global Burden of Disease Study estimated that asthma caused the loss of 21.6 million healthy years of life (disability-adjusted life years) and 461 069 deaths in 2019. Approximately 90% of the asthma burden of disease is borne by people living low and middle income countries (LMICs). Some countries report very high (up to 90%) rates of uncontrolled asthma. While the prevalence of asthma is highest in countries with a high Socio-Demographic Index (SDI), death rates from asthma are highest in countries with low and lower middle incomes.
more
The Implementation toolkit for accessible telehealth services provides practical guidance to support governments, industry partners, health service providers and civil society groups in the use and implementation of the WHO-ITU Global standard for accessibility of telehealth services. The toolkit is... the result of a collaboration between the World Health Organization and the International Telecommunication Union, and was developed in response to the growing challenges that persons with disabilities and other marginalized populations experience when accessing and using telehealth platforms around the world.
more
About one fourth of the world’s population is estimated to have been infected with the tuberculosis (TB) bacilli, and about 5–10% of those infected develop TB disease in their lifetime. The risk for TB disease after infection depends on several factors, the most important being the person’s im...munological status. TB preventive treatment (TPT) given to people at highest risk of progressing from TB infection to disease remains a critical element to achieve the global targets of the End TB Strategy, as reiterated by the second UN High Level Meeting on TB in 2023. Delivering TPT effectively and safely necessitates a programmatic approach to implement a comprehensive package of interventions along a cascade of care: identifying individuals at highest risk, screening for TB and ruling out TB disease, testing for TB infection, and choosing the preventive treatment option that is best suited to an individual, managing adverse events, supporting medication adherence and monitoring programmatic performance
more
Pocket guide to show the positive impact that physical activity can have on your own mental wellbeing, including some tips and suggestions to help you get started.
There are many reasons why physical activity is good for your body having a healthy heart and improving your joints and bones are just ...two, but did you know that physical activity is also beneficial for your mental health and wellbeing
more
Bonchial asthma is the most common chronic respiratory disease in the world. In Kenya, it has been estimated that about 7.5% of the Kenyan population, nearly 4 million people, are currently living with asthma. Many cases tend to be underdiagnosed and undertreated which leads to high levels of morbid...ity and avoidable deaths. The consequences of poorly controlled asthma, including physical, mental, social, and economic impacts, are magnified in the poor on account of poor access to asthma services and sub-optimal quality of those services. With these guidelines, Kenya's Ministry of Health aims to work towards embedding asthma care in Universal Health Care (UHC) to ensure that quality asthma services are available in primary care settings with
referral networks strengthened for those who may require secondary and tertiary care. These national asthma guidelines will also ensure that treatment for asthma is standardized in both the public and the non-state health care sector.
more
On August 13, 2024, the Africa CDC declared the mpox outbreak a Public Health Emergency of Continental Security (PHECS). The following day, the WHO declared it a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC). A coordinated, continent-wide response is essential, co-led by the African Union... (AU) through the Africa CDC and the World Health Organization (WHO), in close collaboration with global partners working under a unified plan, budget, and monitoring framework.
more