Since the release of the first volume in May 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic has continued to rage around the world. By mid-March, 2021, countries around the globe had reported over 123 million cases—a nearly five-fold increase since this report’s previous volume—and over 2.7 million deaths attrib...uted to the disease. And while new case loads are currently on the rise again, the global health community has already administered almost 400 million doses of vaccines, at last offering some signs of hope and progress.
Economic impacts threaten to undo decades of recent progress in poverty reduction, child nutrition and gender equality, and exacerbate efforts to support refugees, migrants, and other vulnerable communities. National and local governments—together with international and private-sector partners—must deploy vaccines as efficiently, safely and equitably as possible while still monitoring for new outbreaks and continuing policies to protect those who do not yet have immunity.
More than ever, the world needs reliable and trustworthy data and statistics to inform these important decisions. The United Nations and all member organizations of the Committee for the Coordination of Statistical Activities (CCSA) collect and make available a wealth of information for assessing the multifaceted impacts of the pandemic. This report updates some of the global and regional trends presented in Volume I and offers a snapshot of how COVID-19 continues to affect the world today across multiple domains.
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It is a pressing question for donors and NGOs alike: is funding development and humanitarian work in fragile and conflict-affected states (FCAS) the equivalent of pouring money into a bottomless pit, if achievements are only going to be undone by further cycles of violence? There is, of course, a st...rong humanitarian imperative to meet the needs of those caught up in violence. However, if the long-term aim of humanitarian and development efforts is the reduction of poverty, it begs the question: what contribution can these programmes make to building peace and stability – and thus increase their own effectiveness and sustainability?
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El objetivo de esta guía es brindar recomendaciones prácticas al personal de salud que se hace cargo de las actividades de preparación y respuesta a las enfermedades contagiosas para asegurar que se mantenga el acceso a servicios de aborto seguro (SAS) cuando surja un brote de enfermedades contag...iosas. Es una guía operativa que puede servir para apoyar a los actores de la salud para que los SAS se mantengan durante los brotes y asegurar que las consideraciones necesarias de SAS se integren dentro de la respuesta al brote; no es una guía clínica. El enfoque centrado en la ubicación de este documento se dirige a los asentamientos frágiles y de ayuda humanitaria; sin embargo, las recomendaciones pueden aplicarse a brotes de enfermedades contagiosas a cualquier población con escasez de recursos. Esta guía busca complementar el trabajo llamado La salud sexual y reproductiva y los derechos durante los brotes de enfermedades contagiosas: Guía operativa para escenarios frágiles y de ayuda humanitaria.
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Asthma is the most common chronic respiratory disease (CRD) worldwide and is estimated to affect 262 million causing significant mortality and morbidity, and has emerged as an important public health problem in many Latin American (LA) countries over the last 30 or so years. LA is a highly diverse r...egion in terms of geography, climate, wealth, and ethnicity including 20 different countries with 639 million inhabitants, where 40 million are estimated to have asthma. A common feature of LA countries is the high level of social inequalities3 (Figure 1). In LA, asthma prevalence in both children and adults is highly variable and, where high, is among the highest worldwide, particularly in coastal tropical cities.
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A qualitative assessment of knowledge gaps about female genital schistosomiasis among communities living in Schistosoma haematobium endemic districts of Zanzibar and Northwestern Tanzania.
PloS Neglected Tropical Diseases September 30, 2021 https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pntd.0009789
Schistosoma... haematobium causes urogenital schistosomiasis and is widely distributed in Tanzania. In girls and women, the parasite can cause Female Genital Schistosomiasis (FGS), a gynecological manifestation of schistosomiasis that is highly neglected and overlooked by public health professionals and policy makers. This study explored community members’ knowledge, attitudes and perceptions (KAP) on and health seeking behavior for FGS.
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Outstanding child and adolescent TB priorities include the need to: find the missing children with active TB and link them to TB care; prevent TB in children who are in contact with infectious TB cases (through implementation of active contact investigation and provision of preventive treatment); an...d advance integration within general child health services, including maternal and child health/ reproductive, maternal, newborn, child and adolescent health, HIV, nutrition and other programmes.
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Large size: Download directly from the website: https://www.washcluster.net/sites/gwc.com/files/2022-01/Unicef_Cholera%20Toolkit_2013.pdf
The authors conduct an integrated survey of Antimicrobial Resistant Organisms (AMR) in drinking water, wastewater and surface water in three settings in Bangladesh: rural households, rural poultry farms, and urban food markets. Results show that untreated water discharged from rural households, poul...try farms and urban markets are major contributors to surface water pollution and antibiotic resistant bacteria genes, calling for increased surveillance and monitoring.
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Design and Illustration Ioanna Aravani
Clinical guideline, Methods, Evidence and Recommendations
In this guideline the following is covered: information needs of people with chronic hep
titis B and their carers; where children, young people and adults with chronic hepatitis B a-
should be assessed; assessment of liver disease, includi...ng the use of non-invasive tests and genotype testing; criteria for offering antiviral treatment; the efficacy, safety and cost effectiveness of currently available treatments; selection of first-line therapy; management of treatment failure or drug resistance; prophylactic treatment during im-
munosuppressive therapy; and monitoring for treatment response
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Covid-19 Social Policy Response Series / No.14
This report examines Ecuador’s social policy response to mitigate the Covid-19 pandemic’s effects and protect
vulnerable populations. It chronologically traces containment, closure policies, social policies and programmes
put in place following t...he announcement of Covid-19 as a global pandemic. A combination of external con-
straints and domestic structures, i.e. informality and weak coordination, led to truncated efforts in the healthcare
response, while persistent inequalities in access to technology and high levels of informality led to fragmented
education, labour policies and social protection responses. The report zooms into the Family Protection Grant
(Bono de Protección Familiar or BPF), a new social protection programme that covers informal workers, which
captures the difficulties in reaching unregistered populations amid lockdown and containment measures.
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As the Convention of the Rights of Children recognizes, children are human beings with a distinct set of rights, and not the passive objects of care and charity. They deserve to be full participants in society, and to live lives free of poverty. But for children, living in poverty is particularly im...pactful. The foundations for life are built in childhood. In the early part of our lives, our bodies and brains develop their capacities to function and interact with the world. We learn the social skills we need to fit into society, and acquire the human capital necessary to earn a living, support a family, and to fully take part in the life of our community Poverty can stunt this development. So can the onset of a disability. As the World Report on Disability (WHO/World Bank 2011) points out, people with disabilities are all too often excluded from the economic and social lives of their community. And the interaction between disability and poverty has the potential to develop a vicious circle that can greatly limit life opportunities.
Working Paper Series: No. 25
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Adapted from the WHO's Decision-Making Tool for family
planning clients and providers