Abstract: Chagas disease is caused by infection with the protozoan Trypanosoma cruzi, and although over 100 years have passed since the discovery of Chagas disease, it still presents an increasing problem for global public health. A plethora of information concerning the chronic phase of human Chaga...s disease, particularly the severe cardiac form, is available in the literature. However, information concerning events during the acute phase of the disease is scarce. In this review, we will discuss the current status of acute Chagas disease cases globally, the immunological findings related to the acute phase and their possible influence in disease outcome, and reactivation of Chagas disease in immunocompromised individuals, a key point for transplantation and HIV invection management.
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Mycetoma is a chronic infectious disease of the subcutaneous tissue with a high morbidity. This disease has been reported from countries between 30°N and 15°S since 1840 but the exact burden of disease is not known. It is currently unknown what the incidence, prevalence and the number of reported ...cases per year per country is. In order to estimate what the global burden of mycetoma is, a meta-analysis was performed. In total 50 studies were included, which resulted in a total of 8763 mycetoma cases. Most cases were found in men between 11 and 40 years of age. The foot was most commonly affected.
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In this document, recommendations are provided on designing and implementing
a cross-sectional serosurvey using school-based sampling to estimate age-specific
DENV seroprevalence to inform a country’s national dengue vaccination program.
The document includes recommendations for methods for ...planning and conducting
serosurveys, including survey design, specimen collection, laboratory testing, data
analysis, and the interpretation and reporting of results.
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Epidemiology
Chagas disease (American trypanosomiasis) is caused by the protozoan parasite Trypanosoma cruzi, and transmitted to humans by infected triatomine bugs, and less commonly by transfusion, organ transplant, from mother to infant, and in rare instances, by ingestion of contaminated food or... drink.1-4 The hematophagous triatomine vectors defecate during or immediately after feeding on a person. The parasite is present in large numbers in the feces of infected bugs, and enters the human body through the bite wound, or through the intact conjunctiva or other mucous membrane.
Vector-borne transmission occurs only in the Americas, where an estimated 8 to 10 million people have Chagas disease.5 Historically, transmission occurred largely in rural areas in Latin America, where houses built of mud brick are vulnerable to colonization by the triatomine vectors.4 In such areas, Chagas disease usually is acquired in childhood. In the last several decades, successful vector control programs have substantially decreased transmission rates in much of Latin America, and large-scale migration has brought infected individuals to cities both within and outside of Latin America.
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Access to health workers who are fit for purpose, motivated and protected is a fundamental force of health service delivery and the achievement of universal health coverage and the health and health-related Sustainable Development Goals. Data and knowledge of the distribution, skill mix and future d...evelopment needs of the health workforce can mean the difference between enabling or impeding health systems performance, inclusive economic growth and global health security preparedness and response
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This Strategy and Plan of Action on Health Promotion within the Context of the Sustainable Development
Goals 2019-2030 seeks to renew health promotion (HP) through social, political, and technical actions,
addressing the social determinants of health (SDH), he conditions in which people are born, ...grow, live,
work, and age (1). It seeks to improve health and reduce health inequities within the framework of
the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
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Guide pratique à l’usage des sages-femmes, médecins spécialisés en obstétrique et personnel de santé devant faire face à des urgences obstétricales. Ce guide a été conçu comme un outil qui permette de protéger la mère et son enfant dans un environnement défavorable. Il est destiné a...ux sages-femmes, médecins spécialisés en obstétrique et personnel de santé devant faire face à des urgences obstétricales.
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To provide a foundation for the strategic policy and programme development needed to ensure the sustainable implementation of effective interventions for reducing the global burden of PPH
Infectious disease outbreaks and epidemics are increasing in frequency, scale and impact. Health care facilities can amplify the transmission of emerging infectious diseases or multidrug-resistant organisms (MDRO) within their settings and communities. Therefore, evidence-based infection prevention ...and control (IPC) measures in health care facilities are critical for preventing and containing outbreaks, while still delivering safe, effective and quality health care. This toolkit is intended to support IPC improvements for outbreak management in all such facilities, both public and private throughout the health system. Specifically, this document systematically describes a framework of overarching principles to approach the preparedness, readiness and response outbreak management phases. The document also provides a toolkit of resource links to guide specific actions for each infectious disease and/or MDRO outbreak management phase at any health facility. This document is specifically tailored to an audience of stakeholders who establish and monitor health care facility-level IPC programs including: IPC focal points, epidemiologists, public health experts, outbreak response incident managers, facility-level IPC committee(s), safety and quality leads and managers, and other facility level IPC stakeholders.
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Latin America and the Caribbean is characterized by a matrix of social inequality whose axes —such as
socioeconomic stratum, gender, stage in the life cycle, ethnicity and race, territory, disability, and immigration
status— create multiple, often concurrent, situations of exclusion and discri...mination. The coronavirus
disease (COVID-19) pandemic has exacerbated wide social gaps and it is no coincidence that Latin America
and the Caribbean is one of the regions in which the health and socioeconomic impacts of the pandemic have
been the most severe, which shows that the costs of inequality are unsustainable
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During the pandemic, Brazil has provided its citizens with support in the areas of long-term care and disability, the labor market, social assistance, education, and pensions. This report focuses on two social policy areas, health-care and family benefits (including labor policies), as these were th...e most crucial social policies implemented in Brazil during the Covid-19 pandemic in terms of the resources allocated and the magnitude of social impact. Brazil’s relatively generous social policies were uncoordinated with public health interventions, which contributed to poor compliance with these public health interventions. This suggests that social policy initiatives alone are insufficient in mitigating the social consequences of the pandemic. They need to be accompanied by and coordinated with public health measures, including regulations on testing, social distancing and mask wearing.
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During the first year of the Covid-19 pandemic, the world’s economy slowed. Yet, the global annual average particulate pollution (PM2.5) was largely unchanged from 2019 levels. At the same time, growing evidence shows air pollution—even when experienced at very low levels—hurts human health. T...his recently led the World Health Organization (WHO) to revise its guideline for what it considers a safe level of exposure of particulate pollution, bringing most of the world—97.3 percent of the global population—into the unsafe zone. The AQLI finds that particulate air pollution takes 2.2 years off global average life expectancy, or a combined 17 billion life-years, relative to a world that met the WHO guideline. This impact on life expectancy is comparable to that of smoking, more than three times that of alcohol use and unsafe water, six times that of HIV/AIDS, and 89 times that of conflict and terrorism.
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Global asymmetries influence policies for recovery in Latin America and the Caribbean. Nearly 30 years after the Earth Summit and the global adoption of an international development agenda, in practical terms the environmental pillar of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development has not been taken ...into consideration in recovery policies in the region. This has created major problems in terms of the medium- and long-term direction of regional economies.
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The Lancet Global Health January 24, 2022
Following review of evidence and advice from the Technical Advisory Group (TAG) on Tuberculosis (TB) Diagnostics and Laboratory Strengthening, the World Health Organization (WHO) announces that current WHO recommendations for the use of interferon-gamma release assays (IGRA) are also valid for Beij...ing Wantai’s TB-IGRA and Qiagen QuantiFERON-TB Gold Plus products. This expands the range of tests available to detect TB infection. Full details are provided in this WHO policy statement.
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BMJ Open Science 2021;5:e100202. doi:10.1136/
bmjos-2021-100202
The unparalleled action needed to combat unprecedented inequality in the wake of COVID-19.
New billionaire minted every 26 hours, as inequality contributes to the death of one person every four seconds