The control and elimination of schistosomiasis have over the last two decades involved several strategies, with the current strategy by the World Health Organization (WHO) focusing mainly on treatment with praziquantel during mass drug administration (MDA). However, the disease context is complex wi...th an interplay of social, economic, political, and cultural factors that may affect achieving the goals of the Neglected Tropical Disease (NTD) 2021-2030 Roadmap. There is a need to revisit the current top-down and reactive approach to schistosomiasis control among sub-Saharan African countries and advocate for a dynamic and diversified approach.
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Data for Action March 2022, Issue 5
Adolescent girls and young women (AGYW) remain disproportionately affected by HIV in Eastern and Southern Africa (ESA), with 26 per cent of new infections attributed to this population. AGYW face many personal, social and structural barriers to access, uptake and use of traditional HIV prevention me...thods. Oral Pre-exposure Prophylaxis (PrEP) is proven to be highly effective as an additional prevention choice for reducing the risk of HIV acquisition, including for AGYW. Successful uptake and adherence to PrEP is critical in its effectiveness as an HIV prevention method, however, the current demand for PrEP by AGYW is low with suboptimal adherence.
Within the ESA region, there is currently great impetus to address these challenges and scale up PrEP for AGYW. A critical aspect of this is to leverage the learnings and evidence from implementation of how to improve the demand and quality of PrEP programming for this population. Improving the Quality of Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis Implementation for Adolescent Girls and Young Women in Eastern and Southern Africa examines the current efforts in the region to accelerate and scale up evidence-based PrEP delivery platforms. The implementation brief provides current knowledge and builds on WHO guidance to provide key considerations for implementation, including driving demand and improving quality, as well as focus on wider combination prevention and integration agendas.
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17 February 2021
During the second joint meeting of African ministers responsible for health, ICT and transport on the rollout of the Africa Against COVID-19: Saving Lives, Economies and Livelihoods campaign, a call was made to African countries to work together towards harmonizing travel entry and... exit requirements, and to increase mutual recognition and cross-border information exchange for enhanced surveillance
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The virtual conference, co-organised by the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) and the South African Medical Research Council (SAMRC) brought together African leaders, public health professionals and researchers, policymakers, business leaders and civil society and commun...ity leaders.
The objective was to discuss strategies and approaches to remove barriers to widespread delivery and uptake of effective COVID-19 vaccines across Africa, guided by African voices and indigenous values. The goal of the conference was to provide input for a framework for fair, equitable and timely allocation of COVID-19 vaccines in Africa.
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WHO Progress Brief
Progress Brief
July 2017
New research explores the stress children in World Vision programmes in the Middle East and Eastern Europe region are under due to COVID-19. In addition to their fear that they themselves or their loved ones will catch the disease, children worry about economic hardships, the loss of their education..., increased violence and social isolation. But in the midst of it all, a clear message comes through – young people are hopeful about the future, they want to make a contribution and they want their voices to be heard.
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This guidance document addresses how physical distancing (referred to in previous guidance documents as ‘social distancing’) can help slow down transmission.
During the year 2022, COVID-19 continued to be a significant challenge in Eritrea as in many other countries across the world. As COVID-19 devastated communities around the world, WHO worked with the MoH to strengthen the National and Sub-National health systems in order to meet community needs and ...mitigate the devastation during the pandemic and beyond.
One of the major achievements in the year 2022 was the beginning of the journey towards validation of
the elimination of mother to child transmission of HIV, syphilis, and hepatitis B. This is the culmination of years
of commitment and determination by the political leadership, national and international partnerships to
reduce the associated indices to levels that qualify for elimination.
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The introduction of vaccines for coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) added another measure to the existing set of
recommended preventive measures (wearing a mask in public, keeping a distance from other people and regular handwashing). The roll-out of the vaccines, however, raised concerns that vac...cination may lead to lower adherence to the existing
preventive measures. The advice from the World Health Organization (WHO) was to continue these public health and
social measures after being vaccinated.1 However, evidence from other epidemics suggests that there is lower adherence to
preventive measures when some level of protection exists (for example, individuals who use human immunodeficiency virus
pre-exposure prophylaxis
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Social Media + SocietyJuly-September 2020: 1 –4
Leaflet from the South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC)
Policy Brief
published: 16 March 2018 doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2018.00069
The sub-Saharan African region, carries 90% of the over 250 million cases of schistosomiasis occurring worldwide. In this region, after Nigeria, Tanzania is second country having the highest cases of schistosomiasis and approximately 51.5%0 of the Tanzanian population is either exposed or live in ar...eas with high risk of exposure. The country is endemic to both Schistosoma mansoni and Schistosoma haematobium, these infections are common in communities characterised with limited access to water, sanitation, hygienic practices and health services. Schistosoma mansoni infection is associated with hepatosplenic disease characterised with hepatomegaly, splenomegaly, progressive periportal fibrosis (PPF) which can lead to portal hypertension and its related sequelae, mainly ascites, liver surface irregularities, oesophageal varices and haematemesis. The main consequences of S. haematobium infection are haematuria, dysuria, nutritional deficiencies, urinary bladder lesions, hydronephrosis, urinary bladder squamous cell carcinoma and in children, growth retardation. Preventive chemotherapy using mass drug administration (MDA) of praziquantel targeting primary school aged children is the main strategy for controlling schistosomiasis in Tanzania.
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This report is not a country scorecard. Rather, its purpose is to act as a compass to guide progress towards health in the SDGs.
There has been a significant improvement in the state of health in the region with healthy life expectancy - time spent in full health - in the region increasing from 50....9 years to 53.8 between 2012 and 2015 - the most marked increase of any region in the world.
What is making Africans sick is changing. The top killers are still lower respiratory infections, HIV and diarrhoeal disease and countries have routinely focused on preventing and treating this trio, often through specialized programmes. The payoff has been significant declines in deaths due to these diseases. There has been a 50% reduction in the burden of disease caused by what have been the top 10 killers since 2000 and death rates have dropped from 87.7 to 51.1 deaths per 100,000 persons between 2000 and 2015...
Chronic diseases like heart disease and cancer are now claiming more lives with a person aged 30 to 70 in the region having a one in five chance of dying from a noncommunicable disease (NCDs).
Countries are specifically failing to provide essential services to two critical age groups – adolescents and the elderly...
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