A major problem facing the world is how to build peace following the ravages of increasingly protracted armed conflict. Armed conflicts leave behind shattered, divided societies that are at risk of repeating cycles of violence, and therefore need concerted peacebuilding efforts. Conflicts also take ...a heavy toll on people’s mental health and psychosocial well-being. One in five people who live in a war zone will likely develop a mental disorder, and many others suffer from painful everyday stresses associated with multiple losses, family separation, gender-based violence (GBV), disability, climate change and ongoing insecurity, among other issues.
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A sanitary inspection is a simple, on-site evaluation (traditionally using a checklist) to help identify and support the management of priority risk factors that may lead to contamination of a drinking-water supply. Sanitary inspections are a well-established and widely-applied practice. They can su...pport water safety planning, and in some contexts, may be a simplified alternative to water safety plans.
This publication presents the World Health Organization’s (WHO’s) sanitary inspection packages. These packages update the sanitary inspection forms in WHO’s 1997 Guidelines for drinking-water quality. Volume 3: surveillance and control of community supplies. With more than 25 years of practical experience with the application of sanitary inspections, these packages have been developed from a comprehensive evidence review and established good practices.
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The Seventy-fifth World Health Assembly through a decision on sustainable financing, adopted the recommendations of the Member States Working Group on Sustainable Financing, contained in Appendix 2 of the Working Group’s report to the Seventy-fifth World Health Assembly. As part of the recommendat...ions, the Secretariat was requested to “explore the feasibility of a replenishment mechanism to broaden further the financing base, in consultation with Member States and taking into consideration the Framework of Engagement with Non-State Actors; and to present a report that includes relevant options for Member States to consider, to the Seventy-sixth World Health Assembly, through the 152nd session of the Executive Board and the thirty-seventh meeting of the Programme, Budget and Administration Committee in January 2023” (paragraph 39(f) of Appendix 2 of the Working Group’s report). In response to this request, the Secretariat reviewed the feasibility of a WHO replenishment mechanism in line with the principles set out by the Working Group on Sustainable Financing. It consulted with Member States through the work of the Agile Member States Task Group on strengthening WHO’s budgetary, programmatic and financing governance and benchmarked a set of replenishment mechanisms within and beyond the global health arena. This report outlines the Secretariat’s review and proposals on key elements of a potential WHO replenishment mechanism.
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The report offers a snapshot of the drivers behind the persistent exclusion of persons with disabilities and proposes a framework to build an actionable agenda building on promising practices available in the region. The COVID-19 pandemic has laid bare the urgent need to build more inclusive and res...ilient societies. The region has shown its resilience in recovering from many crises in the past. Today, we are at a crucial flection point where it is clear that universal policies and economic growth alone are insufficient to eradicate the remaining pockets of exclusion. A disability-inclusive recovery should be at the core of the region’s rebuilding strategy. This matters in its own right but is also of utmost importance for the sustainability of the region.
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Why does WHO consider air pollution a public health emergency? If you live in highly polluted areas does COVID-19 affect you differently? WHO’s Dr Maria Neira explains in Science in 5.
For communities already burdened by poverty and ravaged by scourges such as malaria and tuberculosis, the parasitic disease schistosomiasis is especially devastating. The disease weakens the body's resistance to other infections and leads to poor growth and impaired learning in children. The Carter ...Center works to control the disease and provide hope for future generations in Nigeria, the most schistosomiasis-endemic country in Africa.
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UNAIDS is calling on governments to ensure that the right to health is realized by all by prioritizing public investments in health. At least half of the world’s population cannot access essential health services. Every two minutes a woman dies while giving birth. Among the people being left behin...d are women, adolescents, people living with HIV, gay men and other men who have sex with men, sex workers, people who inject drugs, transgender people, migrants, refugees and poor people.
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Best Practices Report.PART 1 Primary Protection: Enhancing Health Care Resilience for a Changing Climatei Primary Protection: EnhancingU.S. Department of Health and Human Services
Refugee children with disabilities experience a reality of exclusion and marginalisation that makes them among the most vulnerable displaced persons in the world. Excluded from participation in social activities and access to school, not only because of their disability, but especially because of so...cial, cultural, and political barriers that prevent them from enjoying the same opportunities as their peers.
Daniela Bruni, a specialist in education in emergency contexts, who has overseen JRS’s related projects for the past two years, has developed a guide on inclusive education.
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This publication provides a practical tool to support countries in strengthening surveillance of WASH in schools. The findings will inform the development of supportive regulations and improvement planning to safeguard children’s health, well-being, dignity and cognitive performance. The tool also... enables countries to use the data collected to facilitate policy dialogue and inform international reporting, including on progress towards achieving the Sustainable Development Goal targets related to WASH in schools.
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Leishmaniasis is a vector-borne disease with a wide variety of parasite species, reservoirs, and vectors involved in transmission. It is caused by different species of the protozoa Leishmania and is transmitted to animals and humans through a bite of insects in the Psychodidae family. Its presence i...s directly linked to poverty, but social, environmental, and climatalogic factors directly influence the disease's epidemiology.
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According to 2014 Census data, almost a third of the population in Myanmar do not have adequate identity and civil documentation. Of these, 54 percent are women.
Women who live in remote or conflict affected areas, who are displaced or belong to stateless ethnic and religious minorities face the... consequences of an insecure legal identity. They cannot enrol their children in school, open a bank account, travel freely or register land.
The report provides an analysis of the gender aspects of citizenship legislation in Myanmar and its application in light of the standards set by the UN Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). It analyses in detail women’s ability to acquire citizenship on an equal basis as men, their ability to acquire, retain or confer citizenship following marriage and their ability to confer citizenship to their children. The report highlights the normative and practical challenges faced by women and proposes ways forward.
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For more than 100 years, the clearest route to elimination of dog-mediated rabies has been via mass vaccination of the animal hosts. It’s worked in plenty of countries. Still, in others, like India, which grapples with a third of the world’s rabies burden, large populations of free-roaming, hard...-to-track, often hard-to-reach dogs have made elimination an elusive goal.
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Debate about the effectiveness of foreign aid has intensified in recent years, as budgetary pressures on aid have increased in donor countries. Whatever the merits of opposing arguments, the question is: do conventional measures of aid (such as OECD's Net ODA), which lump together grants and loans, ...accurately reflect true aid flows? The authors analyze the methodological shortcomings of conventional measures of aid and propose a new approach.
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22 Sept. 2021
The rapid development of effective Covid-19 vaccines in 2020 gave hope to the world in the darkest days of the deadly pandemic. However, the vaccine roll-out has been massively skewed towards wealthy nations. While rich states have hoarded vaccines, companies have also played a decisi...ve role in restricting fair access to a life-saving health product. This report focuses on six leading vaccine developers, AstraZeneca, BioNTech, Johnson & Johnson, Moderna, Novavax and Pfizer, assessing each company’s human rights policy, pricing structure, records on intellectual property, knowledge and technology sharing, allocation of available vaccine doses and transparency.
Available in Arabic, English, French, German and Spanish
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In responding to the health crisis in Venezuela, the United States and the international community can consider several options: they can encourage the Venezuelan government to fulfill commitments to protect the population's health and access to essential medicines; and they can support civil societ...y organizations and professional groups providing analysis about the health sector. Strengthening the potential of public health professionals within Venezuela, as well as in the diaspora, to develop plans for reforming the health system and addressing current public health challenges should there be a political opening for them to do so will be important, as well.
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Ce rapport inclut des analyses tirées des consultations régionales informelles menées dans la Région africaine, dans les Caraïbes et en Amérique du Nord, dans la Région européenne, dans la Région de la Méditerranée orientale, en Amérique latine ainsi que dans la Région de l’Asie du Su...d-Est, auxquelles s’ajoutent trois rencontres organisées dans la Région du Pacifique occidental. Il analyse les similitudes globales, les nuances régionales et les priorités mises en avant dans les six Régions de l’OMS pour la participation significative des personnes avec une expérience vécue.
Il s’agit du deuxième rapport d’une collection de l’OMS intitulée De l’intention à l’action, qui doit servir à constituer une série de ressources pour renforcer la base de données probantes sur l’impact de la participation significative, qui est pour le moment limitée, et à combler le manque d’approches normalisées pour mettre en oeuvre la participation significative. À cette fin, la collection De l’intention à l’action a été pensée comme plateforme pour que les personnes avec une expérience vécue ainsi que les organisations et institutions à la pointe sur ces questions puissent échanger sur les solutions, les difficultés et les pratiques prometteuses relatives à cet objectif transversal. Elle vise également à fournir des récits et des modèles puissants, ainsi que des données probantes dans la perspective de la quatrième réunion publique de haut niveau des Nations Unies sur les MNT, qui devrait se tenir en 2025, et en vue d’atteindre les objectifs de développement durable (ODD) à l’horizon 2030.
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Tuberculosis continues to represent a severe public health problem in the Region of the Americas, even more so in the case of indigenous peoples, whose TB incidence is much higher than that of the general population. To achieve tuberculosis control in these communities, it is necessary to respond t...o communities’ diverse needs from an intercultural perspective that allows the application of a holistic approach—from a standpoint of equality and mutual respect—and considers the value of their cultural practices. In the Region of the Americas, although there has been progress toward recognizing the need for an intercultural approach to health services, obstacles rooted in discrimination, racism, and the exclusion of indigenous peoples and other ethnic groups persist. To respond to this situation, the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) prepared this guidance which––based on an intercultural approach in accordance with the priority lines of the current PAHO Policy on Ethnicity and Health and its practical development in the Region’s indigenous populations––represent a support tool for implementing the End TB Strategy. This publication integrates PAHO’s accumulated experience and best practices developed by its Member States in recent years, including discussions and experiences shared in regional meetings on the issue, and emphasizes innovation and social inclusion. This requires an urgent shift away from traditional paradigms, taking specific actions that gradually reduce TB incidence and moving toward effective multisectoral actions that have proven effective in quickly containing the epidemic. This publication integrates PAHO’s accumulated experience and best practices developed by its Member States in recent years, including discussions and experiences shared in regional meetings on the issue, and emphasizes innovation and social inclusion. This requires an urgent shift away from traditional paradigms, taking specific actions that gradually reduce TB incidence and moving toward effective multisectoral actions that have proven effective in quickly containing the epidemic.
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Catholic hospitals and other health services provide invaluable care to many in the community. This article accentuates the pastoral nature of Catholic health care, which is definitive to its Catholic identity. Discussing contemporary Catholic health care in conjunction with the works of Henri Nouwe...n we explore the challenges faced by today’s Catholics in Catholic health care and respond to these issues. In support of the discussion are the results of qualitative research into the perceptions Perth parishioners have of Catholic health care’s pastoral nature and Catholic identity. This research aims towards understanding the challenges facing Catholic health care providing pastoral care within its Catholic identity.
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This guide is a resource for future health professionals who want to learn about and engage in abortion issues. Abortion is a critical but often neglected area of women’s rights, women’s health and health science education. The guide ences students was developed for health sciences students -inc...luding students in medicine, nursing, midwifery, pharmacology, public health and other related fields
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