The number of COVID-19 cases is on the rise again, with South Africa nearing half of all confirmed cases in the WHO African Region. Threats of new variants loom and low vaccination coverage raises questions on the future of the response to COVID-19. Prevention remains the key strategy in most sub-Sa...haran countries. Five National Centres (NCs) from the African Health Observatory Platform on Health Systems and Policies (AHOP), based in Ethiopia, Kenya, Nigeria, Rwanda and Senegal, reflect on lessons to be learnt from their containment responses in the initial phases. They construct timelines to highlight the policies and challenges associated with introducing a range of public health containment measures and
discuss the extent to which these measures continue to be valuable given the ever-changing nature of the pandemic.
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Cultural Anthropology
Since early 2014, the international coverage of Africa has been dominated by the Ebola outbreak in West Africa. Much of that coverage represents the region as helpless and hopeless, a tragic victim of illogical beliefs and dangerous cultural practices. The contributors to this... Hot Spots series offer their personal and professional experience in this region as a critical counter-argument. Please read the articles online http://www.culanth.org/fieldsights/585-ebola-in-perspective
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The World Health Organization (WHO) endorses the use of population-based prevalence surveys for estimating the prevalence of trachoma. In general, the prevalence of TF in children aged 1–9 years and the prevalence of TT in adults aged ≥ 15 years are measured at the same time in any district bein...g surveyed. This was the approach of the Global Trachoma Mapping Project, which undertook baseline surveys in > 1500 districts worldwide in order to provide the data required to start interventions where needed.
The survey design recommended by WHO is a two-stage cluster random sample survey, which uses probability proportional to size sampling to select 20–30 villages, and random, systematic or quasi-random sampling to select 25–30 households in each of those villages. In most surveys, everyone aged ≥ 1 year living in selected households is examined.
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The knowledge guide is the second publication in the Self-care competency framework to support health and care workers.
This describes how health and care workers can apply each of the 10 competency standards in their work, detailing the necessary knowledge, skills and attitudes that underpin the... required behaviours.
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This booklet provides latest available estimates of the prevalence of depression and other common mental disorders at the global and regional level, together with data concerning the consequences of these disorders in terms of lost health.
Further Analysis of the 2000, 2005, and 2011 Demographic and Health Surveys. DHS Further Analysis Reports No. 81
Cancer, diabetes, heart disease and stroke, chronic respiratory disease
The UNAIDS 2020 global report is a call to action. It highlights the scale of the HIV epidemic and how it runs along the fault lines of inequalities.
The Global vector control response 2017–2030 (GVCR) provides a new strategy to strengthen vector control worldwide through increased capacity, improved surveillance, better coordination and integrated action across sectors and diseases.
In May 2017, the World Health Assembly adopted resolutio...n WHA 70.16, which calls on Member States to develop or adapt national vector control strategies and operational plans to align with this strategy.
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