2023 was another year of significant progress in the fight against HIV, tuberculosis (TB) and malaria. In countries where the Global
Fund invests, there has been a full recovery from the disruptive impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. The results we have achieved in the last year build on our extraord...inary track record of progress. Over the last two decades, our partnership has cut the combined death rate from AIDS, TB and malaria by 61%. As of the end of 2023, the Global Fund partnership has saved 65 million lives.
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In line with the Defeating meningitis by 2030: a global road map, the WHO guidelines on meningitis diagnosis, treatment and care Executive Summary provides a summary of the evidence-based recommendations for the clinical management of children and adults with community-acquired meningitis, including... acute and long-term care. Meningitis poses a significant public health threat, despite successful efforts to control the disease globally. The burden of morbidity and mortality from meningitis remains high, particularly in low- and middle-income countries and in settings experiencing large-scale, disruptive epidemics.
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The objective of this guideline is to present the complete set of all WHO recommendations and best practice statements relating to abortion. While legal, regulatory, policy and service-delivery contexts may vary from country to country, the recommendations and best practices described in this docume...nt aim to enable evidence-based decision-making with respect to quality abortion care.
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This publication provides an overview of evidence and guidance on the growing challenge of workplace heat stress in the context of climate change. It highlights the health and productivity risks faced by billions of workers, especially in manual labor sectors. The report details the physiological, s...ocioeconomic, and mental health impacts of heat stress and outlines evidence-based strategies for prevention and mitigation. It emphasizes the need for occupational heat action programmes, stakeholder collaboration, and tailored interventions to protect vulnerable workers, reduce productivity losses, and support sustainable development in a warming world.
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Non-Communicable Diseases (NCDs) have emerged as conditions of great public health concern in Kenya accounting for 39% of deaths annually. The Ministry of Health through the Department of Non-Communicable Diseases has adopted the vision of achieving a nation free from preventable burden of NCDs. Fur...ther, the mission of this strategy is to halt and reverse the rising burden of NCDs through effective multisectoral collaboration and partnerships by ensuring Kenyans receive the highest attainable standard of NCD continuum of care that is accessible, affordable, quality, equitable and sustainable thus alleviating suffering, disease and death for their well-being and socio-economic development.
The scope of NCDs covered by this strategy include; cardiovascular diseases, cancer, diabetes, chronic respiratory diseases, mental health conditions, violence and injuries, hemoglobinopathies, haemophilia and other bleeding disorders, auto immune diseases, chronic renal diseases, epilepsy and other neurological disorders, chronic skin conditions and oral diseases and conditions. It equally addresses seven risk factors; tobacco use, harmful use of alcohol, unhealthy diets and toxins, physical inactivity, indoor air pollution, environmental pollutants and toxins and stress.
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Health in All Policies (HiAP) promotes health and equity. It is based on the recognition that our greatest health challenges for example, non-communicable diseases, health inequities and inequalities, climate change, and spiraling health care costs are highly complex and often linked through the soc...ial determinants of health (SDH). In this context, promoting healthy communities, and in particular health equity across different population groups, requires that we address the social determinants of health, such as public transportation, education access, access to healthy food, economic opportunities, and more. While many public policies work to achieve this, conflicts of interest may arise. Alternatively, unintended impacts of policies are not measured and addressed. This requires innovative solutions, and structures that build channels for dialogue and decision-making that work across traditional government policy siloes. Hence, HiAP could be adopted to ensure commitment from the highest decision makers within government to address the social determinants of health.
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These guidelines have been developed in simple, user-friendly language and they explain the procedures for patients’ access to and the safe management of Schedule I and II drugs that are necessary for the treatment and relief of moderate to severe pain. They provide both procedures for acquisition... and information on records or documents that are necessary to ensure that these medicines are made available and accessible to patients across the entire health care delivery system (i.e. from tertiary institutions to primary level) and ensuring prevention of illicit non-medical use.
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This resulting toolkit is a practical guide intended to assist users to become advocates for palliative care in a practical and effective
way. It is not necessarily a resource to read from cover to cover; rather, it can also be used selectively to each reader’s needs to engage audiences and... ensure that there is a real understanding of the need for palliative care. It should also be read in conjunction with the supplementary resources listed at the end of each of the toolkit’s sections.
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To contribute to the availability of basic knowledge and skills for the provision of palliative care in
the African region, the African Palliative Care Association (APCA) has developed a competencybased core curriculum framework for use in introductory training on palliative care. The curriculum ... is based on the APCA Standards for Providing Quality Palliative Care Across Africa to ensure that care providers are trained to the appropriate competence for their cadre and level of skill. This curriculum therefore aims to facilitate the development of the best basic skills and attitudes required for the delivery of palliative care services that meet the desired standards of palliative care. The curriculum incorporates theoretical, practical, mentorship and supervision components that are critical to the effective application of knowledge in practice.
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The Guidelines for the Use of the APCA African Palliative Outcome Scale (POS) has been developed by the APCA, in collaboration with
stakeholders, to help appropriately trained health practitioners and researchers across the region to utilise the APCA African POS in their work place (Powell et... al, 2007; Warria et al, 2007). Not only do the guidelines provide a clear rationale for measuring palliative care outcomes, but they also outline practical information on how to use the tool to collect data and analyse its results. So why is there a need for these guidelines?
Palliative care as a concept and discipline is not well understood across Africa, and its development is still embryonic in many countries. While there are many obstacles that hinder palliative care development on the continent, a key challenge is the lack of accurate information about the palliative care being provided and its outcomes. The APCA African POS is a useful tool to help us measure these outcomes and, given that
measuring palliative care outcomes remains a relatively new concept, it is important to guide people on how to use the tool. Of course, these guidelines are not intended to address everything related to the measurement of palliative care outcomes; they contain only essential information for providers. More detailed information on the use of outcome tools, and in particular within the research setting, can be gained from contacting relevantly trained professionals.
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In the absence of a such a measure, and building on the success of developing the APCA African
Palliative Outcome Scale (POS) for adults, the African Palliative Care Association has developed the
APCA African Children’s POS. The tool has been validated across diseases, countries, settings and ...
languages and used in both quality improvement and research studies. Moreover, feedback on the
tool from doctors and nurses who have used it has been very supportive, with providers perceiving
it as an easy-to-use instrument that helps them undertake holistic assessments that in part entail
discussing difficult issues.
This booklet is a practical guide intended to help users employ the APCA African POS correctly.
Following a discussion of the origins and background to the APCA African PPOS, the guide discusses
the measurement of outcomes, the development of the tool and its use (including the analysis of
collected data), before finishing with illustrative examples of the use of the questionnaire.
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During the reporting period, significant progress was made in strengthening the mpox response across the continent. The lessons learned and challenges identified during the joint mpox continental intra-action review (IAR), which took place successfully in December 2024 in Addis Ababa have guided the... development of the action plan for the response to the mpox epidemic in January and February 2025.
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WHO, as the coordinating authority on international health, supports countries in protecting public health through evidence-based policies and actions. Considering the significant health burden and the multiple potential benefits of interventions, the WHO Air Quality, Energy and Health Unit aims to ...support countries by providing evidence, building institutional capacity and leveraging the “health argument” to convene sectors to tackle air pollution and accelerate energy access.
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20 YEARS OF STRATEGIC HIV AND PUBLIC HEALTH DATA . beThe completion of the 6th South African National HIV Prevalence, Incidence and Behaviour Survey (SABSSM) report, coincides with the celebration of 30 years of democracy in South Africa; and marks 20 years of conducting nationally representative ho...usehold-based surveys by the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC), its collaborators and donors. Since its inception in 2002, the SABSSM series has emerged as one of the HSRC’s leading scientific contributions to the country’s HIV and AIDS response (1), providing essential data to monitor the HIV epidemic, the impact of the HIV program in South Africa, and to inform strategies for epidemic control in the National Strategic Plan for HIV, TB and STIs (NSP), now in its fifth edition. Using scientific evidence from SABSSM and other key sources, the NSP guides the country’s response, under the leadership of the South African AIDS Council (SANAC) and the National Department of Health (NDoH), with focus on equitable access to biomedical interventions, addressing the structural and social behavioural drivers of the epidemic, and targeting populations disproportionately affected by HIV; such as, black Africans, key populations and adolescent girls and young women (AGYW) aged 15–24 years (2).
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PHSM are vital in reducing the risk and scale of infectious disease transmission and lowering hospitalization and deaths. Examples include contact tracing, quarantine and isolation, mask use, ventilation, school or workplace measures, mobility restrictions and travel requirements.
While these mea...sures are essential, decision-making on PHSM becomes particularly complex during rapidly evolving health emergencies, with incomplete information and under significant public and political pressure, especially when the pathogen is novel or poorly understood. In such contexts, guidance needs to be agile and responsive, developed and adapted based on emerging evidence and shifting epidemiological patterns. Decision-makers are frequently confronted with difficult trade-offs, having to balance measures that are:
─ effective but socially disruptive;
─ cost-effective but logistically burdensome;
─ beneficial for public health but economically disruptive; or
─ practical but inequitable or unethical
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These Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) have been developed by the Infant Feeding in Emergencies (IFE) Core Group Infectious Disease Working Group based on the most recent recommendations, collective knowledge and evidence on cholera. The FAQs also draw on infant and young child feeding (IYCF) recom...mendations from the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Infant Feeding in Emergencies Core Group (IFE CG). These FAQs are intended to provide answers to health workers and the public – including mothers who are breastfeeding or expressing milk – on breastfeeding during a cholera outbreak.
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Ces questions fréquemment posées (FAQs) ont été élaborées par le Groupe de travail sur les maladies infectieuses du Groupe l'alimentation central sur des nourrissons en situation d'urgence (IFE) en se basant sur les recommandations les plus récentes, les connaissances collectives et les donn...es probantes relatives au choléra. Les questions fréquemment posées (FAQs) s'appuient également sur les recommandations de l'Organisation mondiale de la santé (OMS) et du Groupe central sur l'alimentation des nourrissons en situation d'urgence (IFE CG) en matière d'alimentation des nourrissons et des jeunes enfants (IYCF). Ces FAQs ont pour objectif de fournir des réponses aux professionnels de santé ainsi qu’au grand public- y compris aux mères qui allaitent ou qui tirent leur lait- au sujet de l'allaitement maternel lors d'une épidémie de choléra.
Cesquestions fréquentesreflètent:
•Les preuves disponibles et les derniers outils de lutte contre le choléra du Groupe de travail mondial sur la lutte contre le choléra (2025) et de l'UNICEF (2013)
•Les effets protecteurs du lait maternel et de l'allaitement
•Les effets néfastes liés à l'utilisation inappropriée de substituts de lait maternel
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This plan, approved by the Organization’s 62nd Directing Council, was shaped by extensive consultations with countries and stakeholders, and commits to transformative health outcomes over the next six years, tackling noncommunicable diseases (NCDs), mental health, health security, fragmented healt...h systems and services, and the elimination of communicable diseases, amongst others.
“The COVID-19 pandemic taught us that the Region of the Americas is stronger when we work together,” said Dr. Jarbas Barbosa, PAHO Director. “This Strategic Plan harnesses our collective strength to build resilient health systems, reduce disease burden, and improve health and well-being for all across the Americas.”
The plan builds on lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic, which exposed gaps in health systems while highlighting the power of joint action. It targets measurable impacts in countries, such as reducing maternal mortality, reversing rising suicide rates, and eliminating diseases like leprosy and Chagas.
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Current HIV/AIDS Reports (2022) 19:358–374. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11904-022-00615-z.
MINDSPACE is an acronym developed by the UK's behavioural insights team to summarise nine key influences on human behaviour: Messenger, Incentives, Norms, Default, Salience, Priming, Affect, Commitment, and E...go. These effects have been used in various settings to design interventions that encourage positive behaviours. Currently, over 200 institutionalised behavioural insight teams exist internationally, which may draw upon the MINDSPACE framework to inform policy and improve public services.
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Adolescents and young adults aged 10-24 remain underserved in the global response against HIV. Combination prevention, treatment and care programmes use a mix of evidence-based interventions to meet the current HIV prevention needs of adolescents and young adults. However, there needs to be a focus ...on priority interventions that are evidence-based, practical, contextual and sustainable. This document highlights interventions and recommendations that have passed through the evidence-based lens of the WHO.
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