The World Health Organization's fact sheet on opioid overdose highlights the significant global health issue posed by opioids, which include natural, semi-synthetic, and synthetic compounds used primarily for pain management. Misuse and unsupervised use can lead to dependence and severe health probl...ems. In 2019, approximately 600,000 deaths were attributed to drug use, with nearly 80% related to opioids; about 25% of these were due to overdose. An opioid overdose is characterized by pinpoint pupils, unconsciousness, and breathing difficulties. The fact sheet emphasizes the importance of increasing access to naloxone, an opioid antagonist that can rapidly reverse overdose effects, and advocates for training individuals likely to witness an overdose in its administration. It also underscores the need for comprehensive strategies, including preventive measures, treatment for opioid dependence, and policies to reduce opioid availability.
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The Safe Delivery App is a smartphone application that provides skilled birth attendants with direct and instant access to evidence-based and up-to-date clinical guidelines on Basic Emergency Obstetric and Neonatal Care. The App leverages the growing ubiquity of mobile phones to provide life-saving ...information and guidance through easy-to-understand animated instruction videos, action cards and drug lists. It can serve as a training tool both in pre- and in-service training, and equips birth attendants even in the most remote areas with a powerful on-the-job reference tool.
Accessed 3rd April 2019
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Open Guidelines is brought to you on behalf of the paediatrics department of Queen Elizabeth
Central Hospital in Blantyre, Malawi. Our aim is to improve access to clinical guidelines for our
health care professionals.
Open guidelines has all the latest QECH clinical protocols and essential drug i...nformation. All
content can be downloaded and afterwards be accessed at any time. The app has a search function.
Total data volume for download is 15 MB. Also on the same app one can access COIN, an excellent neonatal and
infant training course.
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Review of International, Regional and National Policies and Legal Frameworks that Promote Migrants and Mobile Populations' Access to Health and Malaria Services in the Greater Mekong Subregion (Cambodia, Lao People's Democratic Republic, Myanmar, Thailand and Viet Nam)
Migrants and mobile popul...ations face many obstacles in accessing equitable essential health care services due to factors such as living and working conditions, education level, gender, irregular migration status, language and cultural barriers, anti-migrant sentiments, and lack of migrant-inclusive health policies among others. Despite significant progress having been made in the context of malaria control in the Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS), human movements can impact malaria transmission patterns and potentially introduce drug-resistant parasites. This legal framework review therefore serves as a guidance document on approaches to address malaria and malaria elimination for migrant and mobile populations (MMPs) in five countries of the GMS.
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HIV, viral hepatitis and STI epidemics, particularly among people who inject drugs and other key populations, continue to be fuelled by laws and policies criminalizing sex work; drug use or possession; diverse forms of gender expression and sexuality; stigma and discrimination; gender discrimination...; violence; lack of community empowerment and other violations of human rights. These sociostructural factors limit access to health services, constrain how these services are
delivered and diminish their effectiveness.
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Since the launch of the Global Programme to Eliminate Lymphatic Filariasis (GPELF) in 2000, more than 910 million people have received preventive chemotherapy for lymphatic filariasis (LF) and many thousands have received care for chronic manifestations of the disease. To achieve this, millions of c...ommunity drug distributors (CDDs), community members and health personnel have worked together each year to ensure that at-risk communities receive preventive chemotherapy through mass drug administration (MDA). The successes of 20 y of partnership with communities is celebrated, including the application of community-directed treatment, the use of CDDs and integration with other platforms to improve community access to healthcare. Important challenges facing the GPELF moving forward towards 2030 relate to global demographic, financing and programmatic changes. New innovations in research and practice present opportunities to encourage further community partnership to achieve the elimination of LF as a public health problem. We stress the critical need for community ownership in the current Covid-19 pandemic, to counter concerns in relaunching MDA programmes for LF.
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Antibiotics have been a critical public health tool since the discovery of Penicillin in 1928, saving the lives of millions of people around the world. In developing country like ours, where the burden of treatable disease is very high and access to health facilities and laboratories is difficult, a...ntibiotics have long acted as miracle drugs. Today, however, the emergence of drug
resistance in bacteria is reversing the miracles of the past eighty years, with drug choices for the treatment of many bacterial infections becoming increasingly limited, expensive, and in some cases, nonexistent. Diseases previously regarded as relatively easy to manage are much harder to treat as doctors must use “last-resort” drugs that are more costly, take longer to work
and are often unavailable or unaffordable in developing countries. Moreover, regular prescription of antibiotics, random treatment, over the counter sales, inadequate dosage, inclusion of antibiotics in animal feeds and agriculture has contributed equally to emergence of antibiotics resistance as silent epidemic within the country.
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It is essential that all people, including people living with HIV, are able to access health services and ongoing treatment. If people living with HIV who are on ART stop abruptly because they cannot access new supplies they could rapidly become unwell, drug resistance may build and the chances of o...nward transmission of the virus would increase.
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Revised working paper following AVAREF meeting February 2019.
WHO has published a roadmap aiming to coordinate partners’ actions and contributions to the licensing and roll-out of Merck’s Ebola vaccine (VSV-ZEBOV) in African countries. The vaccine was developed during the West Africa Ebola epi...demic of 2014-2016, during which more than 11 000 people lost their lives to the disease. The vaccine was tested in European and African countries at the time and is currently used under an “expanded access” protocol in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
WHO will expedite prequalification and licensing of the vaccine for use in countries at risk of Ebola outbreaks and will coordinate work between those countries’ regulatory authorities and the European Medicines Agency and the US Food and Drug Administration.
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The ongoing Ebola epidemic in parts of West Africa largely overwhelmed health-care systems in 2014, making adequate care for malaria impossible and threatening the gains in malaria control achieved over the past decade. The study suggests that untreated malaria cases as a result of reduced health-ca...re capacity probably contributed substantially to the morbidity caused by the Ebola crisis. Mass drug administration can be an effective means to mitigate this burden and reduce the number of non-Ebola fever cases within health systems
Open Access through Wellcome Trust
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Malaria is a prevalent cause of febrile illnesses in areas with high transmission, and its clinical presentation overlaps with initial signs of Ebola disease. For this reason, the effectiveness of the Ebola response in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone can be optimized through the deployment of targe...ted measures to reduce the number of fever cases due to malaria
WHO recommends specific adaptations in the diagnosis of malaria and in LLIN distribution in countries heavily affected by the Ebola outbreak and mass drug administration using artemisinin-based combination therapies (ACTs) in areas where transmission of both Ebola and malaria is high and access to malaria treatment is very low.
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For those with smartphones, you can install the free ‘MSF Guidance’ app by the Open Medicine Project from the app store. It includes the MSF guidelines on Ebola and Marburg virus disease. MSF guidance is an easily searchable app with all the latest MSF clinical protocols and essential drug info...rmation for medical field workers. All content can be downloaded before mission and accessed at any time.
MSF Guidance for Android devices:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.msf.medical.guidelines&hl=en_US&gl=US
MSF Guidance for Apple devices:
https://apps.apple.com/si/app/msf-medical-guidelines/id1282995934
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The sub-Saharan African region, carries 90% of the over 250 million cases of schistosomiasis occurring worldwide. In this region, after Nigeria, Tanzania is second country having the highest cases of schistosomiasis and approximately 51.5%0 of the Tanzanian population is either exposed or live in ar...eas with high risk of exposure. The country is endemic to both Schistosoma mansoni and Schistosoma haematobium, these infections are common in communities characterised with limited access to water, sanitation, hygienic practices and health services. Schistosoma mansoni infection is associated with hepatosplenic disease characterised with hepatomegaly, splenomegaly, progressive periportal fibrosis (PPF) which can lead to portal hypertension and its related sequelae, mainly ascites, liver surface irregularities, oesophageal varices and haematemesis. The main consequences of S. haematobium infection are haematuria, dysuria, nutritional deficiencies, urinary bladder lesions, hydronephrosis, urinary bladder squamous cell carcinoma and in children, growth retardation. Preventive chemotherapy using mass drug administration (MDA) of praziquantel targeting primary school aged children is the main strategy for controlling schistosomiasis in Tanzania.
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Background: East African trypanosomiasis is an uncommon, potentially lethal disease if not diagnosed and treated in a timely manner. South Africa, as a centre for emergency medical evacuations from much of sub-Saharan Africa, receives a high proportion of these patients, mostly tourists and expatria...te residents.
Methods: The cases of East African trypanosomiasis patients evacuated to South Africa, for whom diagnostic and clinical management advice was provided over the years 2004–2018, were reviewed, using the authors’ own records and those of collaborating clinicians.
Results: Twenty-one cases were identified. These originated in Zambia, Malawi, Zimbabwe, Tanzania, and Uganda. Nineteen cases (90%) had stage 1 (haemolymphatic) disease; one of these patients had fatal myocarditis. Of the two patients with stage 2 (meningoencephalitic) disease, one died of melarsoprol encephalopathy. Common problems were delayed diagnosis, erroneous assessment of severity, and limited access to treatment.
Conclusions: The key to early diagnosis is recognition of the triad of geographic exposure, tsetse fly bites, and trypanosomal chancre, plus good microscopy. Elements for successful management are rapid access to specific drug treatment, skilled intensive care, and good laboratory facilities. Clinical experience and the local stock of antitrypanosomal drugs from the World Health Organization have improved the chance of a successful outcome in the management of East African trypanosomiasis in South Africa; the survival rate over the period was 90.5%.
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Cardiovascular diseases (CVD) represent the highest burden of disease globally. Medicines are a critical intervention used to prevent and treat CVD. This review describes access to medication for CVD from a health system perspective and strategies that have been used to promote access, including pro...viding medicines at lower cost, improving medication supply, ensuring medicine quality, promoting appropriate use, and managing intellectual property issues. Using key evidence in published and gray literature and systematic reviews, we summarize advances in access to cardiovascular medicines using the 5 health system dimensions of access: availability, affordability, accessibility, acceptability, and quality of medicines. There are multiple barriers to access of CVD medicines, particularly in low- and middle-income countries. Low availability of CVD medicines has been reported in public and private healthcare facilities. When patients lack insurance and pay out of pocket to purchase medicines, medicines can be unaffordable. Accessibility and acceptability are low for medicines used in secondary prevention; increasing use is positively related to country income. Fixed-dose combinations have shown a positive effect on adherence and intermediate outcome measures such as blood pressure and cholesterol. We have a new opportunity to improve access to CVD medicines by using strategies such as efficient procurement of low-cost, quality-assured generic medicines, development of fixed-dose combination medicines, and promotion of adherence through insurance schemes that waive copayment for long-term medications. Monitoring progress at all levels, institutional, regional, national, and international, is vital to identifying gaps in access and implementing adequate policies.
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Accessed on 10.09.2022
Para evaluar la situación basal de los PROA en Chile, el grupo iniciativa del Milenio para la Investigación Colaborativa en Resistencia Bacteriana (MICROB-R), realizó una encuesta que en colaboración con el Ministerio de Salud debía ser respondida por los hospitales p...blicos y privados de mediana y alta complejidad, durante el año 2021. Cabe señalar que debido a la contingencia de la pandemia por COVID-19, la llegada de la información y el monitoreo adecuado de las respuesta a la encuesta
por parte de las SEREMIs y Servicios de Salud se hizo muy dificultosa, lográndose que sólo un 56% de los hospitales respondieran la encuesta.
El presente informe da cuenta de los resultados obtenidos en la encuesta realizada.
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