This operational guide addresses important infection prevention and control (IPC) measures that should be implemented during a diphtheria outbreak and primarily addresses respiratory Corynebacterium diphtheriae (C. diphtheria).
Birth to 13 weeks (z-scores)
Online learning for clinical management staff of respiratory diphtheria in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh.
In December 2017, the WHO Health Emergencies Programme launched an online learning for clinical staff on respiratory diphtheria through the OpenWHO.org platform. The 4-hour course targets clinicians ...caring for patients during outbreaks in vulnerable settings, such as in Cox's Bazar. It is also applicable to clinicians working in settings that share similar challenges, due to limitations of: laboratory capacity, availability of treatment facilities, number of trained staff, medications, medical supplies, and supportive care.
With the OpenWHO App, users can now view course content on a mobile device, with or without internet connection, once it has been downloaded: an important feature needed in vulnerable settings. Material is now being translated into Bahasa Indonesia and Arabic.
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The Report describes the evaluation of WHO's contribution to the Maternal Health Program in South-East Asia Region. This was an independent evaluation conducted in 2015 by Amaltas, a Delhi based organization. The evaluation highlights the progress in five countries, namely Bangladesh, Indonesia, Mya...nmar, Nepal and Sri Lanka and provides specific recommendations for Organizational Learning and Development. This report will be useful for all those interested in WHO's work on Maternal Health Program in the Region.
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The World Health Organization (WHO) and the global community of countries, partners, donors, technical experts, scientists and field implementation teams continue to work towards the ultimate goal of a world free of the burden of neglected tropical diseases (NTDs).
Background:Tracking aid fl ows helps to hold donors accountable and to compare the allocation of resources in relation to health need. With the use of data reported by donors in 2015, we provided estimates of offi cial development assistance and grants from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (coll...ectively termed ODA+) to reproductive, maternal, newborn, and child health for 2013 and complete trends in reproductive, maternal, newborn, and child health support for the period 2003–13. Methods: We coded and analysed fi nancial disbursements to reproductive, maternal, newborn, and child health to all recipient countries from all donors reporting to the creditor reporting system database for the year 2013. We also revisited disbursement records for the years 2003–08 and coded disbursements relating to reproductive and sexual health activities resulting in the Countdown dataset for 2003–13. We matched this dataset to the 2015 creditor reporting system dataset and coded any unmatched creditor reporting system records. We analysed trends in ODA+ to reproductive, maternal, newborn, and child health for the period 2003–13, trends in donor contributions, disbursements to recipient countries, and targeting to need.
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Between 2012 and 2016, development assistance for HIV/AIDS decreased by 20·0%; domestic financing is therefore critical to sustaining the response to HIV/AIDS. To understand whether domestic resources could fill the financing gaps created by declines in development assistance, we aimed to track spe...nding on HIV/AIDS and estimated the potential for governments to devote additional domestic funds to HIV/AIDS.
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While much of Myanmar’s population continues to benefit from the ongoing process of political and economic reforms, there are close to one million people who remain in need of emergency assistance and protection as a result of ongoing crises in Rakhine, Kachin and Shan. In addition, despite signif...icant progress and investments in disaster risk reduction, millions of people in different parts of Myanmar face the ever-present risk of natural disasters in one of Asia’s most disaster-prone countries.
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Background: The last decade has seen a dramatic increase in international and domestic funding for malaria control, coupled with important declines in malaria incidence and mortality in some regions of the world. As the ongoing climate of financial uncertainty places strains on investment in global ...health, there is an increasing need to audit the origin, recipients and geographical distribution of funding for malaria control relative to populations at risk of the disease. Methods: A comprehensive review of malaria control funding from international donors, bilateral sources and national governments was undertaken to reconstruct total funding by country for each year 2006 to 2010. Regions at risk from Plasmodium falciparum and/or Plasmodium vivax transmission were identified using global risk maps for 2010 and funding was assessed relative to populations at risk. Those nations with unequal funding relative to a regional average were identified and potential explanations highlighted, such as differences in national policies, government inaction or donor neglect.
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Beat the heat: child health amid heatwaves in Europe and Central Asia finds that half of these children died from heat-related illnesses in their first year of life. Most children died during the summer months.
"Around half of children across Europe and Central Asia – or 92 million children –... are already exposed to frequent heatwaves in a region where temperatures are rising at the fastest rate globally. The increasingly high temperatures can have serious health complications for children, especially the youngest children, even in a short space of time. Without care, these complications can be life-threatening,” said Regina De Dominicis UNICEF Regional Director for Europe and Central Asia.
Heat exposure has acute effects on children, even before they are born, and can result in pre-term births, low birth weight, stillbirth, and congenital anomalies. Heat stress is a direct cause of infant mortality, can affect infant growth and cause a range of paediatric diseases. The report also notes that extreme heat caused the loss of more than 32,000 years of healthy life among children and teenagers in the region.
As the temperatures continue to rise, UNICEF urges governments across Europe and Central Asia to:
- Integrate strategies to reduce the impact of heatwaves including through National Determined Contributions (NDC), National Adaptation Plans (NAP), and disaster risk reduction and disaster management policies with children at the centre of these plans
Invest in heat health action plans and primary health care to more adequately support heat-related illness among children
- Invest in early warning systems, including heat alert systems
- Adapt education facilities to reduce the temperatures in the areas children play in and equip teachers with skills to respond to heat stress
- Adapt urban design and infrastructure including ensuring buildings, particularly those housing the most vulnerable communities are equipped to minimize heat exposure
- Secure the provision of safe water, particularly in countries with deteriorating water quality and availability.
UNICEF works with governments, partners and communities across the region to build resilience against heatwaves. This includes equipping teachers, community health workers and families with the skills and knowledge to respond to heat stress.
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We bring care to life. Engaging, crystal clear, short, and practical, our videos enable learners of all levels to easily understand, and remember critical teaching points.
The Monitoring Report, which covers the first two months of the response from 25 August to 31 October, highlights the work of the Government of Bangladesh, in cooperation with humanitarian partners who are working to provide relief services for the refugee population and Bangladeshi host communities.... Of the 1.2 million people in need, around half have been reached with assistance. The Report also explains the challenges and gaps that remain. The risk of disease outbreak is high, and the impact of a cyclone or heavy rain would be massive. There is not enough land to provide adequate living conditions for the more than 830,000 refugees that now crowd Cox’s Bazar.
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Bridging the gap between disaster resilience and conflict risk reduction
Being away from our regular routines and the people we love can be hard. Lost income, crowded living spaces, violence, fear, uncertainty, and living with depression or other mental health problems can make it even harder. We will be living with these difficulties for a long time as we adjust to COVI...D-19, so it is important to find ways to help us manage.
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Based on Human Rights Watch (HRW)'s reporting on the human rights dimensions of the COVID-19 pandemic (see Related Summary, and the video, below), this document presents 40 questions to provoke thinking about a rights-respecting response to the crisis. The questions address the needs - including aro...und issues of information and communication - of groups most at risk, such as people living in poverty, ethnic and religious minorities, women, people with disabilities, older people, migrants, refugees, children, and lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people. The resource also identifies a variety of responses to the crisis, some of which are positive and others problematic - with many links to related stories and resources online.
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Ce rapport présente les résultats clés de la quatrième Enquête Démographique et de Santé du Bénin (EDSB-IV), qui a été réalisée de décembre 2011 à mars 2012 par l’Institut National de la Statistique et de l’Analyse Économique (INSAE) sous la tutelle du Ministère du Développement..., de l’Analyse Économique et de la Prospective, en collaboration avec les services techniques du ministère de la Santé, le Programme National de Lutte contre le Sida (PNLS), le Laboratoire de Parasitologie du Centre National Hospitalier et Universitaire Hubert Maga (CNHU) et le Laboratoire de référence du Programme National de Lutte contre le Sida et les IST (PNLS). L’EDSB-IV a été financée par le Gouvernement du Bénin, l’Agence des États-Unis pour le Développement International (USAID), le Fonds Mondial, le Fonds des Nations Unies pour l’Enfance (UNICEF), le Fonds des Nations Unies pour la Population (UNFPA) et le Programme Multisectoriel de Lutte contre le Sida (PMLS) par le biais d’un financement de la Banque Mondiale.
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Briefing note | 16 March 2020
Do no harm, equality, transparency, humanity: values should guide the criminal justice sector’s response to coronavirus
At the time of publishing there were more than 164,000* confirmed cases of COVID- 19, the novel form of Coronavirus, affecting 110 countries wit...h more than 6,470 deaths. In this briefing we assess the current situation of COVID-19 outbreaks and prevention measures in prisons** and wider impacts of responses to governments on people in criminal justice systems. This briefing note argues for action to be taken now and immediately, given the risk people in prison are exposed to, including prison staff.
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Background: Donor countries in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) including Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and United Arab Emirates (UAE) have been among the largest donors in the world. However, little is known about their contributions for health. In this study, we addressed this gap by estimating the ...amount of development assistance for health (DAH) contributed by MENA country donors from 2000 to 2017. Methods: We tracked DAH provided and received by the MENA region leveraging publicly available development assistance data in the Development Assistance Committee (DAC) database of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), government agency reports and financial statements from key international development agencies. We generated estimates of DAH provided by the three largest donor countries in the MENA region (UAE, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia) and compared contributions to their relative gross domestic product (GDP) and government spending; We captured DAH contributions by other MENA country governments (Egypt, Iran, Qatar, Turkey, etc.) disbursed through multilateral agencies. Additionally, we compared DAH contributed from and provided to the MENA region.
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Background: Disbursements of development assistance for health (DAH) have risen substantially during the past several decades. More recently, the international community's attention has turned to other international challenges, introducing uncertainty about the future of disbursements for DAH.
Meth...ods: We collected audited budget statements, annual reports, and project-level records from the main international agencies that disbursed DAH from 1990 to the end of 2015. We standardised and combined records to provide a comprehensive set of annual disbursements. We tracked each dollar of DAH back to the source and forward to the recipient. We removed transfers between agencies to avoid double-counting and adjusted for inflation. We classified assistance into nine primary health focus areas: HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria, maternal health, newborn and child health, other infectious diseases, non-communicable diseases, Ebola, and sector-wide approaches and health system strengthening. For our statistical analysis, we grouped these health focus areas into two categories: MDG-related focus areas (HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria, child and newborn health, and maternal health) and non-MDG-related focus areas (other infectious diseases, non-communicable diseases, sector-wide approaches, and other). We used linear regression to test for structural shifts in disbursement patterns at the onset of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs; ie, from 2000) and the global financial crisis (impact estimated to occur in 2010). We built on past trends and associations with an ensemble model to estimate DAH through the end of 2040.
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The burden of diabetes is high and increasing globally, and in developing economies like India, mainly fueled by the increasing prevalence of overweight/obesity and unhealthy lifestyles. The estimates in 2019 showed that 77 million individuals had diabetes in India, which is expected to rise to over... 134 million by 2045. Approximately 57% of these individuals remain undiagnosed. Type 2 diabetes, which accounts for majority of the cases, can lead to multiorgan complications, broadly divided into microvascular and macrovascular complications. These complications are a significant cause for increased premature morbidity and mortality among individuals with diabetes, leading to reduced life expectancy and financial and other costs of diabetes leading to profound economic burden on the Indian health care system. The risk for diabetes is largely influence by ethnicity, age, obesity and physical inactivity, unhealthy diet, and behavioral habits in addition to genetics and family history. Good control of blood sugar blood pressure and blood lipid levels can prevent and/or delay the onset of diabetes complications. The prevention and management of diabetes and associated complications is a huge challenge in India due to several issues and barriers, including lack of multisectoral approach, surveillance data, awareness regarding diabetes, its risk factors and complications, access to health care settings, access to affordable medicines, etc. Thus, effective health promotion and primary prevention, at both, individual and population levels are the need of the hour to curb the diabetes epidemic and reduce diabetes-related complications in India
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