The provision of safe and efficacious blood and blood components for transfusion or manufacturing use involves a number of processes, from the selection of blood donors and the collection, processing and testing of blood donations to the testing of patient samples, the issue of compatible blood and ...its administration to the patient. There is a risk of error in each process in this “transfusion chain” and a failure at any of these stages can have serious implications for the recipients of blood and blood products. Thus, while blood transfusion can be life-saving, there are associated risks, particularly the transmission of bloodborne infections.
Screening for transfusion-transmissible infections (TTIs) to exclude blood donations at risk of transmitting infection from donors to recipients is a critical part of the process of ensuring that transfusion is as safe as possible. Effective screening for evidence of the presence of the most common and dangerous TTIs can reduce the risk of transmission to very low levels.
more
Background Paper prepared for the 2015 Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction
The aim of this paper is to help bring voluntary standards into the toolbox of disaster risk reduction, including both by encouraging their use by business and by enhancing their role in legislation and ...regulatory practice.
- Authorities can build awareness for standards in Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR), by facilitating access to relevant standards, encouraging education on DRR-related standards and involving the standardization community.
- Standards need to be sustained by a powerful infrastructure that allows for reliable inspections, audits and precise measurements to be conducted by skilled professionals.
- Risk management best practice needs to embed, as emdodies in standards, more fully in regulatory frameworks in sectors that are relevant.
more
This document aims to assist countries to take the first step towards better considering gender and equity issues in their efforts to tackle antimicrobial resistance (AMR), to inform the implementation of strategies in national action plans and contribute to improved reach and effectiveness of AMR e...fforts in the longer term. It is part of a series of papers being developed y WHO, FAO and OIE to build a better global evidence base for implementing AMR national action plans. This version is illustrated by examples from the health sector predominantly but
will be updated with advice from the food and animal sectors in due course.
more
Children living in humanitarian crises face an increased risk of abuse. While the threats of harm are increasing, the established systems in place to protect them are breaking down. Faced with the COVID-19 pandemic and its impacts, vulnerable families suffer multiple hardships. Schools are closed an...d families have been pushed to the brink of poverty, sometimes having been denied the opportunity to protect and provide for their children.
The report provides an in-depth analysis of 19 Humanitarian Response Plans and Refugee Response Plans from 2019
more
El objetivo de esta publicación es ofrecer un enfoque práctico y gradual para la aplicación de los planes de acción nacionales sobre la RAM en el sector de la salud humana; y proporcionar un proceso y una recopilación de las herramientas existentes de la OMS para priorizar, costear, aplicar, su...pervisar y evaluar las actividades del plan de acción nacional. Los destinatarios de la publicación son las partes interesadas nacionales/subnacionales que trabajan en la RAM dentro del sector de la salud humana. Se trata de las autoridades sanitarias nacionales, los grupos de coordinación multisectorial nacionales, los expertos técnicos de alto nivel y los responsables de la formulación de políticas que participan en la ejecución de las actividades relativas a la RAM en todos los niveles del sistema de salud, y los asociados en la ejecución para acelerar la aplicación sostenible y el seguimiento y la evaluación de los planes de acción nacionales sobre la RAM.
more
Se calcula que en 2015 había en el mundo 17,8 millones de mujeres de 18 años o mayores infectadas por el VIH, cifra que equivale al 51% de los adultos que viven con VIH. Las adolescentes y las jóvenes se ven especialmente afectadas; en 2015 constituían el 60% de los individuos entre 15 a 24 año...s de edad que vivían con el VIH, representando también el 58% de las infecciones por el VIH de adquisición reciente en los jóvenes de ese grupo de edad. En muchos países las mujeres que viven con el VIH carecen de acceso equitativo a servicios de salud de buena calidad, y enfrentan muchas formas de estigma y discriminación que se entrecruzan. Más aun, estas mujeres son desproporcionadamente vulnerables a la violencia, en particular las violaciones de sus derechos sexuales y reproductivos.
more
This paper examines the extent to which health workers differ in their willingness to work in rural areas and the reasons for these differences, based on the data collected in Rwanda analysed individually and in combination with data from Ethiopia.
Alto a la Tuberculosis.
Enfermedades Transmisibles.
Recent increases in family planning (FP) use have been reported among women of reproductive age in union (WRAU) in Senegal. However, trends have not been monitored among harder-to-reach groups (including adolescents, unmarried and rural poor women), key to understanding whether FP progress is equita...ble. We combined data from six Demographic and Health Surveys conducted in Senegal between 1992/93 and 2014. We examined FP trends over time among WRAU and subgroups, and trends in knowledge of FP and intention to use among women with unmet need for FP. Our results show that percent demand satisfied is lower among rural poor women and adolescents than WRAU, although higher among unmarried women. Marked recent increases have been observed in all subgroups, however fewer than 50% of women in need of FP use modern contraception in Senegal. Knowledge of FP has risen steadily among women with unmet need; however, intention to use FP has remained stable at around 40% since 2005 for all groups except unmarried women (75% of whom intend to use). Significant progress in meeting the need for FP has been achieved in Senegal, but more needs to be done particularly to improve acceptability of FP, and to strategically target interventions toward adolescents and rural poor women.
more
RESULTS: Between 76 and 97% of the PHCS offered RMCAH services before the lockdown. Except in antenatal, delivery and adolescent care, there was a decline of between 2 and 6% in all the services during the lockdown and up to 10% decline after the lockdown with variation across and within States. Dur...ing the lockdown. Full-service delivery was reported by 75.2% whereas 24.8% delivered partial services. There was a significant reduction in clients' utilization of the services during the lockdown, and the difference between States before the pandemic, during, and after the lockdown. Reported difficulties during the lockdown included stock-out of drugs (25.7%), stock-out of contraceptives (25.1%), harassment by the law enforcement agents (76.9%), and transportation difficulties (55.8%). Only 2% of the PHCs reported the availability of gowns, 18% had gloves, 90.1% had hand sanitizers, and a temperature checker was available in 94.1%. Slightly above 10% identified clients with symptoms of COVID-19.
CONCLUSIONS: The large proportion of PHCs who provided RMCAH services despite the lockdown demonstrates resilience. Considering the several difficulties reported, and the limited provision of primary protective equipment more effort by the government and non-governmental agencies is recommended to strengthen delivery of sexual and reproductive health in primary health centres in Nigeria during the pandemic.
more
Adresssing climate change impacts on infrastructure: preparing for change. Fact sheet
ПРактИЧеское РукоВодстВо для соВместных меРоПРИятИй.
Lancet Infect Dis 2020 Published Online May 5, 2020 https://doi.org/10.1016/ S1473-3099(20)30254-1
The World Health Organization (WHO) defines mental health as ‘a state of well-being in which the individual realizes his or her own abilities, can cope with the normal stresses of life, can work productively and fruitfully, and is able to make a contribution to his or her community’. Mental illn...ess refers to all of the diagnosable mental disorders, which are characterised by abnormalities in thinking, feelings or behaviours. Mental illness is closely related to vulnerability, both in its causes and in its effects. Globally, 14 per cent of the global burden of disease is attributed to mental illness – with 75 per cent of those affected being found in low-income countries – which includes a broad spectrum of diagnoses, from common mental illnesses such as anxiety and
substance abuse, to severe illnesses like psychosis.
more
Millennium Development Goal 8E aims for affordable access to essential medicines. Essential medicines, as defined by WHO, are those that “satisfy the health-care needs of the majority of the population” and that should therefore “be available at all times in adequate amounts”. However, there... is a category of medicines that faces a unique challenge in terms of availability. These are the medicines governed by the international conventions on narcotic and psychotropic substances. “Controlled medicines” is the common definition for pharmaceuticals whose active principles are listed under the 1961 United Nations Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs as amended by the 1972 Protocol, such as morphine and methadone; the 1971 United Nations Convention on Psychotropic Substances, such as diazepam and buprenorphine; and the 1988 United Nations Convention against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances, such as ergometrine and ephedrine. The conventions list substances in “Schedules” according to their different levels of potential for abuse and harm, and the commensurate severity of control measures to be applied by countries.
more
Recent systematic reviews and meta-analysis of the impact of chemical-based mollusciciding (King et al., 2015, Sokolow et al., 2016) have concluded that regular mollusciciding is likely to contribute significantly towards elimination of schistosomiasis in high-risk areas. The WHO roadmap’s new foc...us on “transmission control, wherever possible” (WHO, 2012a) reinforces the need to promote intermediate-host snail control to prevent schistosomiasis transmission.
This operational manual is intended to facilitate the reintroduction of practices and protocols for use of molluscicides in the field in schistosomiasis control programmes. It is complemented by guidelines on the laboratory and field testing of the efficacy of molluscicides for schistosomiasis control (WHO, 2017 [in preparation]).
more
BMC Health Services Research 14(1):42 · January 2014
The objective of this international comparative study is to describe and compare the mental health policies in seven countries of Eastern Europe that share their common communist history: Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Moldova, Poland..., Romania, and Slovakia.
The burden of totalitarian history still influences many areas of social and economic life, which also has to be taken into account in mental health policy. We may observe that after twenty years of health reforms and reforms of health reforms, the transition of the mental health systems still continues. In spite of many reform efforts in the past, a balance of community and hospital mental health services has not been achieved in this part of the world yet.
more
Original Research
Rev Panam Salud Publica 43, 2019 | www.paho.org/journal | https://doi.org/10.26633/RPSP.2019.31