This revised and fully updated edition of the
International technical guidance on sexuality education
benefits from a new review of the current evidence, and reaffirms the position of sexuality education within a framework of human rights and gender equality. It promotes structured learning about... sex and relationships in a manner that is positive, affirming, and centered on the best interest of the young person. By outlining the essential components of effective sexuality education programmes, the Guidance enables national authorities to design comprehensive curricula that will have a positive impact on young people’s health and well-being.
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BACKGROUND: Growing political attention to antimicrobial resistance (AMR) offers a rare opportunity for achieving meaningful action. Many governments have developed national AMR action plans, but most have not yet implemented policy interventions to reduce antimicrobial overuse. A systematic evidenc...e map can support governments in making evidence-informed decisions about implementing programs to reduce AMR, by identifying, describing, and assessing the full range of evaluated government policy options to reduce antimicrobial use in humans.
METHODS AND FINDINGS: Seven databases were searched from inception to January 28, 2019, (MEDLINE, CINAHL, EMBASE, PAIS Index, Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, Web of Science, and PubMed). We identified studies that (1) clearly described a government policy intervention aimed at reducing human antimicrobial use, and (2) applied a quantitative design to measure the impact. We found 69 unique evaluations of government policy interventions carried out across 4 of the 6 WHO regions. These evaluations included randomized controlled trials (n = 4), non-randomized controlled trials (n = 3), controlled before-and-after designs (n = 7), interrupted time series designs (n = 25), uncontrolled before-and-after designs (n = 18), descriptive designs (n = 10), and cohort designs (n = 2). From these we identified 17 unique policy options for governments to reduce the human use of antimicrobials. Many studies evaluated public awareness campaigns (n = 17) and antimicrobial guidelines (n = 13); however, others offered different policy options such as professional regulation, restricted reimbursement, pay for performance, and prescription requirements. Identifying these policies can inform the development of future policies and evaluations in different contexts and health systems. Limitations of our study include the possible omission of unpublished initiatives, and that policies not evaluated with respect to antimicrobial use have not been captured in this review.
CONCLUSIONS: To our knowledge this is the first study to provide policy makers with synthesized evidence on specific government policy interventions addressing AMR. In the future, governments should ensure that AMR policy interventions are evaluated using rigorous study designs and that study results are published.
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The Venezuelan refugee and migrant crisis is one of the biggest external displacement crises in the world today. The COVID-19 pandemic has compounded an already desperate situation for many refugees and migrants, as well as their hosts, sorely testing health and social welfare systems and the abilit...y of countries to assist the vulnerable population.
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NFPA continues to work with partners to respond to the Ukraine emergency. Highlights from the month of January include:
- The #TrainOfHope launched between Kyiv and Chisinau is a lifeline, providing refugees, including many women with children, both a route to safety and a way back home.
- When t...he Government of Ukraine lost control of Kherson city, social workers at a shelter for survivors of domestic violence continued to work so that women and girls could receive essential assistance.
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The COVID-19 pandemic is a multiplier of vulnerability, compounding threats to food insecurity, while exposing weaknesses in food and health systems. It is severely undermining the capacity of communities to cope in times of crisis and has become a stress test for political and economic stability.
Growing evidence indicates that large proportions of children around the world experience physical, sexual and emotional violence every year, with enormous implications for human rights, public health and economic and social development.1 Over the last five years, national governments and Together f...or Girls – a global public-private partnership comprising UNICEF,
other United Nations (UN) agencies, the United States (US) Government and various private sector agencies – have worked to mobilize and sustain a global movement to end violence against children, with a focus on sexual violence against girls.
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Communication to Healthcare Professionals Mar-2020
This guideline is intended to assist healthcare professionals in the participation of very important process of continuous surveillance of safety and efficacy of the health products which are used in their clinical practice. Continuous evaluation o...f medicines’ benefit and harm help to achieve the ultimate goal of safe and effective treatments available to patients.
The guideline is intended to assist healthcare professionals in the reporting of suspected adverse drug reactions (ADRs) associated with the use of all registered health products, including medicines, old medicines, medical devices and in-vitro diagnostics (IVDs).
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The Information Management Unit of the Assistance Coordination Unit issued a Panoramic Report on Busra Esh-Sham City located in Dar’a Governorate. The report reflects the living conditions in the city during November and December 2017. The report covers in analysis several sections: Active Civilia...n actors, Demography, Health, Food Security, Education, and the Infrastructure, which incorporates Water sector, Sewage System, Solid Waste, Electricity, and Public Roads Network. This report aims at drawing the attention of the decision-makers to the civil actors in the city of Busra Esh-Sham and to enable them to manage the community and provide necessary infrastructure needs and services to the community people.
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The Infection Prevention and Control (IPC) Legal Framework comes before the Specialized Technical Committee on Health and Drug Control for adoption and endorsement. The IPC Legal Framework is designed to guide Member States in the review and strengthening of laws and policies that support IPC at bot...h the national level and in healthcare facilities. In developing this IPC Legal Framework, the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC)
is furthering its mandates to harmonize disease control and prevention policies and promote the prevention and control of diseases by building capacity of public health institutions in Members States.
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27 April 2022 Chronic land degradation: UN offers stark warnings and practical remedies in Global Land Outlook 2. GLO2 offers hundreds of examples from around the world that demonstrate the potential of land restoration.
The way land resources – soil, water and biodiversity – are currently mi...smanaged and misused threatens the health and continued survival of many species on Earth, including our own, warns a stark new report from the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD).
It also points decision makers to hundreds of practical ways to effect local, national and regional land and ecosystem restoration.
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A guide to facilitating community-managed disaster risk reduction in the Horn of Africa.
This manual describes how to help communities implement disaster risk reduction activities. It was written for development workers and community-based organizations in the Horn of Africa, but practitioners can ...use it to implement activities around the world
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This guidance document is based on research of social media activity related to antibiotic use at EU level, as well as on a survey of the social media activities of EAAD partner organisations, mostly EU umbrella organisations of patients and health professionals. The research showed that there is al...ready some social media activity on prudent antibiotic use and that a few potential influencers are emerging. Similarly, the survey of the EU-wide partners of EAAD showed that respondents are becoming active on social media platforms.
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This toolkit is designed as a resource for CBM that can be used in a variety of ways: to support staff induction, team meetings, refresher days and training workshops. It can also be used as a tool for personal reflection and self-study. Tips for those intending to use it as a training resource are ...shaded differently.
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PEPFAR Malawi’s Country Operational Plan (COP) 2021 reflects a culmination of strong interagency collaboration between the PEPFAR Malawi team, Government of Malawi (GoM), and civil society organizations (CSOs) to mitigate the devastating impacts of COVID-19 and sustain progress achieved over the l...ast two decades towards HIV epidemic control.
At the conclusion of the March 2020 Johannesburg Regional Planning Meeting, the PEPFAR Malawi team presented a COP20 surge strategy to improve client-centered care, mitigate treatment disruption, scale prevention programs to key and vulnerable populations, and strengthen national health systems.
Following this meeting, the first three COVID-19 cases were reported in Malawi and immediately thereafter, adaptations to the COP20 strategy became imperative to deliver safe, client-centered care.
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This document lays out economic arguments for investing in the Access to COVID-19 Tools Accelerator (ACT-Accelerator). Framed within an overall context that recognizes the broader human health and societal impacts of the COVID-19 crisis, ACT-Accelerator's Economic Investment Case argues that investm...ent in ACT-Accelerator is the world’s best bet and most viable solution for restarting the global economy. It is intended for governments, multilaterals, civil society, businesses and foundations and all those interested in the work required to change the course of the pandemic. The global deployment of ACT-Accelerator’s comprehensive package of tools will reduce the severity of COVID-19 disease, enabling countries to transition out of the crisis thereby restarting domestic and international economic engines driving our global economy.
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Pregnancy and childbirth during adolescence profoundly affects the lives of millions of girls worldwide, and is a leading cause of maternal mortality and morbidity, and infant and child mortality. Every year, an estimated 21 million girls aged 15–19 years old in low- and middle-income countries be...come pregnant, and approximately 12 million give birth.
For many adolescent girls, the ability to control their sexual lives remains limited. Long-standing gender inequalities and discrimination, marginalization, harmful social and gender norms, and denial of rights, compounded by poverty and violence, render them vulnerable to early pregnancy, HIV and other health threats. Lack of age-appropriate sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) information and services create additional barriers to care and support; as a result, adolescent girls who become pregnant are much more likely to go on to have rapid repeated births.
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Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) has emerged as a leading cause of death in the African region, surpassing fatalities from malaria, HIV, and TB. In response to this critical threat, the region has adopted the AMR Global Action Plan and the African Union Framework for Antimicrobial Resistance Control 2...020 – 2025, which is tailored to meet the specific needs of African nations through a coordinated approach. While most countries in the region have developed and prioritized National Action Plans (NAPs) to tackle AMR, the overall response remains inadequate given the magnitude of the threat, which endangers human, animal, environmental, aquatic, and plant health.
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This report explores the extent to which evidence, policy, normative guidance and commitments on HIV and gender-based violence, and their interlinkages, is being translated into action on the ground in fragile settings. These issues are explored through the lens of training of peace support operatio...ns deploying African troops across Africa and beyond.
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Using antimicrobials responsibly is an essential component ofefforts to contain antimicrobial resistance (AMR), and to ensurethat patients receive appropriate treatment. The WHO global action plan on AMR emphasizes the importance of training healthcare professionals in antimicrobial prescribing and ...stew-ardship (AMPS). There are several challenges, however, such asthe wide range of healthcare professionals involved in the pre-scribing process, and the heterogeneity of prescribing rights and practices of different professional groups within and between countries. One way to address these challenges is through developing competencies, which define the minimum standards that all antimicrobial prescribers should reach.
Clinical Microbiology and Infection 25 (2019) 13e19
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The document presents an assessment developed by both institutions as a contribution to the prioritization of education in national response plans to the health emergency and future recovery strategies. "Countries have deployed various response and recovery plans in which education needs to be incor...porated as a central element," the report says, "not only to ensure an education response, but to achieve an equitable, inclusive and sustainable recovery”.
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