The Operational guide: use of referral laboratories for the analysis of foodborne hazards in the Pacific aims to strengthen the food analysis capacity of Pacific Island countries and areas by identifying national and reference laboratories capable of testing for priority foodborne hazards. The Pacif...ic Island countries and areas are often vulnerable to food safety incidents and emergencies due to their geographical distribution and dependence on food imports. The guide outlines key considerations for selecting referral laboratories and submitting samples to them, enabling continuous improvement of food safety systems and providing safe food for all. The target audiences are health and food safety authorities.
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The Antimicrobial Resistance Benchmark has evaluated for the second time how the most important players in the antibiotic market are addressing the rise of resistance and the global need for appropriate access to antibiotics. Although we can see progress — it’s hanging by a thread.
We have reac...hed a tipping point where large and prominent drugmakers have retreated from the antibiotics field and smaller innovative biotech companies have gone bankrupt due to the poor financial rewards on offer.
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Millennium Development Goal 8E aims for affordable access to essential medicines. Essential medicines, as defined by WHO, are those that “satisfy the health-care needs of the majority of the population” and that should therefore “be available at all times in adequate amounts”. However, there... is a category of medicines that faces a unique challenge in terms of availability. These are the medicines governed by the international conventions on narcotic and psychotropic substances. “Controlled medicines” is the common definition for pharmaceuticals whose active principles are listed under the 1961 United Nations Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs as amended by the 1972 Protocol, such as morphine and methadone; the 1971 United Nations Convention on Psychotropic Substances, such as diazepam and buprenorphine; and the 1988 United Nations Convention against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances, such as ergometrine and ephedrine. The conventions list substances in “Schedules” according to their different levels of potential for abuse and harm, and the commensurate severity of control measures to be applied by countries.
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This background document (EUR/RC72/BG/7) was considered and adopted by the WHO Regional Committee for Europe at its 72nd session (Tel Aviv, Israel, 12–14 September 2022), together with the working document (EUR/RC72/7) and information document (EUR/RC72/INF./4). The Regiona...l Committee adopted resolution EUR/RC72/R3, in which it endorsed the framework.
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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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Every day in 2020, approximately 800 women died from preventable causes related to pregnancy and childbirth - meaning that a woman dies around every two minutes.
Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) target 3.1 is to reduce maternal mortality to less than 70 maternal deaths per 100 000 live births by ...2030.
The United Nations Maternal Mortality Estimation Inter-Agency Group (MMEIG) – comprising WHO, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), the World Bank Group and the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division (UNDESA/Population Division) has collaborated with external technical experts on a new round of estimates covering 2000 to 2020. The estimates represent the most up to date, internationally-comparable MMEIG estimates of maternal mortality, using refined input data and methods from previous rounds.
The report presents internationally comparable global, regional and country-level estimates and trends for maternal mortality between 2000 and 2020.
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In our fourth year of producing The State of Open Humanitarian Data, we can report the highest levels yet for data availability across priority humanitarian operations. These gains can be attributed to the commitment of organizations to sharing and maintaining their data publicly. There was also str...ong demand for data about the world's largest humanitarian crises, from the war in Ukraine to drought and food insecurity in the Horn of Africa.
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A practical tool for field based humanitarian workers. It provides up-to-date, clear and succint guidance on topics accross the humanitarian sector including references to current, relevant resources and practical tools.
Trachoma, caused by particular serovars of Chlamydia trachomatis, is the leading
infectious cause of blindness. Infection is transmitted within ocular and nasal secretions that are passed from person to person on fingers, fomites (such as clothing) and eye-seeking flies (particularly Musca sorbens)....
Ophthalmic infection is associated with an inflammatory conjunctivitis known as “active trachoma”. Repeated episodes of active trachoma can scar the eyelids. In some individuals this leads to trachomatous trichiasis (TT), in which one or more eyelashes on the upper
eyelid touch the eye. TT is extremely painful. It can be corrected surgically, but, if left untreated, may lead to corneal opacification, resulting in vision impairment and blindness.
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This fourth annual report monitors global progress towards the 2023 target for global elimination of industrially produced trans-fatty acids (TFA), highlighting achievements during the past year (October 2021 – September 2022). Countries are responding to the World Health Organization (WHO) call t...o action by putting into place best-practice TFA policies. Mandatory TFA policies are currently in effect for 3.4 billion people in 60 countries (43% of the world population); of these, 43 countries have best-practice policies in effect, covering 2.8 billion people (36% of the world population).
Over the past year, several additional countries took action to eliminate industrially produced TFA: best-practice policies came into effect in India in January 2022, Uruguay in May 2022 and Oman in July 2022. Best-practice policies were passed in Bangladesh in November 2021 (to come into effect in December 2022) and in Ukraine in September 2020 (to come into effect in October 2023), best-practice TFA policies are projected to pass soon in Mexico, Nigeria and Sri Lanka.
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Recency assays use one or more biomarkers to identify whether HIV infection in a person is recent (usually within a year or less) or longstanding. Recency assays have been used to estimate incidence in representative cross-sectional surveys and in epidemiological studies to better understand the pat...terns and distributions of new and longstanding HIV infections.
This technical guidance outlines best practices regarding the appropriate use of HIV recency assays for surveillance purposes and updates 2011 technical guidance from the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) on the use of HIV recency assays.
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The Strategy to respond to antimalarial drug resistance in Africa is a technical and advocacy document, grounded in the best available evidence to date and aimed at minimizing the threat and impact of antimalarial drug resistance of Plasmodium falciparum parasites in Africa. Its objectives are to: i...) improve the detection of resistance to ensure a timely response; ii) delay the emergence of resistance to artemisinin and artemisinin-based combination therapy (ACT) partner drugs; and iii) limit the selection and spread of resistant parasites where resistance has been confirmed.
WHO Team
Global Malaria Programme
Editors
World Health Organization
Number of pages
87
Reference numbers
ISBN: 978 92 4 006026 5
Copyright
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First Global Patient Safety Challenge Clean Care is Safer Care
The WHO Guidelines on Hand Hygiene in Health Care provide health-care workers (HCWs), hospital administrators and health authorities with a thorough review of evidence on hand hygiene in health care and specific recommendations to impro...ve practices and reduce transmission of pathogenic microorganisms to patients and HCWs. The present Guidelines are intended to be implemented in any situation in which health care is delivered either to a patient or to a specific group in a population. Therefore, this concept applies to all settings where health care is permanently or occasionally performed, such as home care by birth attendants.
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These guidelines deal specifically with water, sanitation and hygiene, and are designed to be used in schools in low-cost settings in low- and medium-resource countries to:
• assess prevailing situations and plan for required improvements;
• develop and reach essential safety standards as a f...irst goal; and
• support the development and application of national policies.
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27 September 2022
These WHO interim recommendations for use of the Novavax NVX-CoV2373 vaccine were developed on the basis of advice issued by the Strategic Advisory Group of Experts on Immunization (SAGE) and the evidence summary included in the background document and annexes referenced below.
This twelfth version of the WHO living guideline now contains 19 recommendations. This latest update provides updated recommendations for remdesivir, addresses the use of combination therapy with corticosteroids, interleukin-6 (IL-6) receptor blockers and Janus kinase (JAK) inhibitors in patients wi...th severe or critical COVID-19, and modifies previous recommendations for the neutralizing monoclonal antibodies sotrovimab and casirivimab-imdevimab in patients with non-severe COVID-19.
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