It focuses on nine major priority areas, namely: Leadership and Governance for Health; Health Service Delivery; Human Resources for Health; Health Financing; Health Information Systems; Health Technologies; Community Ownership and Participation; Partnerships for Health Development; and Researc...h for Health.
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The World Health Organization (WHO) and the Uganda Red Cross Society today signed an agreement to strengthen the screening of travellers at 25 points of entry in eight districts on the border between Uganda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).
The support will also go towards training 22...9 frontline health workers and volunteers on infection prevention and control.
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The major issue was a lack of flexibility and unpredictable funding for activities. The Office continued to work closely with partners, especially UN Agencies and concluded jointly the UNDAP 2018-2023. The work was accomplished by a dedicated staff.
They improved health of communities with effectiv...eness and commitment.
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The 2016-2017 Biennial report presents an overview of WHO Namibia's main achievements and challenges and highlights its vision for the next five years.
The Country Cooperation Strategy (CCS) is a document to guide WHO’s work in countries. CCS is a medium-term vision for WHO’s technical cooperation with a given Member State, and supports the country's national health policy, strategy or plan. The CCS time frame is flexible to align with national... cycles and processes. It is the basis for aligning WHO’s collaboration with other United Nations bodies and development partners at the country level.
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“Guide to facilitate the implementation of the WHO/UNICEF “Guidance on developing a national deployment and vaccination plan for COVID-19 vaccines” for Africa
t contains action-oriented lists of critical topics to address and checklists tailored to the context of African Union Member States.
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The contents of this guide aim to guide the development of one comprehensive national deployment and vaccination plan, as proposed and outlined by the guidance – and underlines the need for countries to develop their vaccination plans.
This guide is not meant as a tool to assess deployment readiness. The recommendation to Member States is to use the VIRAT/VRAF 2.0 tool for that, which builds on the COVAX Vaccine Introduction Readiness Assessment Tool (VIRAT) and the World Bank’s Vaccine Readiness Assessment Framework (VRAF).
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Adolescent girls and young women (AGYW) remain disproportionately affected by HIV in Eastern and Southern Africa (ESA), with 26 per cent of new infections attributed to this population. AGYW face many personal, social and structural barriers to access, uptake and use of traditional HIV prevention me...thods. Oral Pre-exposure Prophylaxis (PrEP) is proven to be highly effective as an additional prevention choice for reducing the risk of HIV acquisition, including for AGYW. Successful uptake and adherence to PrEP is critical in its effectiveness as an HIV prevention method, however, the current demand for PrEP by AGYW is low with suboptimal adherence.
Within the ESA region, there is currently great impetus to address these challenges and scale up PrEP for AGYW. A critical aspect of this is to leverage the learnings and evidence from implementation of how to improve the demand and quality of PrEP programming for this population. Improving the Quality of Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis Implementation for Adolescent Girls and Young Women in Eastern and Southern Africa examines the current efforts in the region to accelerate and scale up evidence-based PrEP delivery platforms. The implementation brief provides current knowledge and builds on WHO guidance to provide key considerations for implementation, including driving demand and improving quality, as well as focus on wider combination prevention and integration agendas.
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Monkeypox is an emerging viral zoonosis with symptoms similar to those observed in smallpox patients, although less severe. Since the global eradication of smallpox in 1980, monkeypox has emerged as the most important orthopoxvirus in humans. The Advisory Committee on Variola Virus Research (ACVVR) ...which meets annually to oversee smallpox research has highlighted the importance of diagnostics that could distinguish between variola and other strains of orthopoxviruses, including monkeypox virus. The ACVVR encourages the positive effects of current smallpox research on all orthopoxviruses, specifically monkeypox, such as the development of diagnostic tools.
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For health care providers.
Sub-Saharan Africa has the highest maternal mortality in the world. According to estimates by the United Nations Maternal Mortality Estimation Inter-Agency Group (UN MMEIG)1 in September 2017, while the African Region had recorded a significant decline in maternal mortali...ty rate (MMR) of 37.8% between 2000 and 2017, 66% of the 295 000 maternal deaths reported globally occurred in sub-Saharan Africa. The African Region is also noted to have an extremely high MMR, estimated at 542 per 100000 livebirths, with an average annual rate of reduction of 2.9%.
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The World Health Organization’s (WHO) global report for the year 2019 indicates that sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) has a very high maternal mortality rate (MMR) with a 2017 point estimate of 542 (UI 498 to 649) maternal deaths per 100 000 live births, accounting for approximately 66% of estimated globa...l maternal deaths. Despite recent improvements, current analysis confirms that millions of mothers and children are still dying every year because of severe anaemia due to insufficient blood supply. The lack of blood to treat severe perinatal haemorrhage contributes to up to 72% of maternal deaths (2,3). Similarly, delayed transfusion has been associated with increased infant mortality in cases of paediatric malaria-associated anaemia (4,5). Indeed, safe and reliable blood and blood products remain unavailable to many people living in the world’s poorest countries, particularly in SSA. While the need for blood is universal, there is a significant imbalance between developing and industrialized countries accessing safe blood.
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Anopheles stephensi, a highly competent vector of Plasmodium falciparum and P. vivax, is considered an efficient vector of urban malaria. Until 2011, the reported distribution of An. stephensi was confined to certain countries of South Asia and parts of the Arabian Peninsula. Since then, the vector ...has been collected in Djibouti (2012), Ethiopia (2016), Sudan (2016), Sri Lanka (2017), Somalia (2019), and most recently Nigeria (2020) and Yemen (2021). WHO considers the spread of An. stephensi to be a major potential threat to malaria control and elimination in Africa and southern Asia and has recently launched an initiative against the spread of this vector in Africa.
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On August 13, 2024, the Africa CDC declared the mpox outbreak a Public Health Emergency of Continental Security (PHECS). The following day, the WHO declared it a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC). A coordinated, continent-wide response is essential, co-led by the African Union... (AU) through the Africa CDC and the World Health Organization (WHO), in close collaboration with global partners working under a unified plan, budget, and monitoring framework.
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