On Global Handwashing Day, WHO and UNICEF have released the first-ever global Guidelines on Hand Hygiene in Community Settings to support governments and practitioners in promoting effective hand hygiene outside health care – across households, public spaces and institutions. Framing hand hygiene ...as a public good and a government responsibility, the Guidelines translate evidence into ready-to-adopt actions that enable sustainable access to effective hygiene services. This will reduce diarrhoeal disease, acute respiratory infections and other preventable illnesses, strengthening routine public health where people live, work, visit and study, and emergency preparedness, including outbreaks like cholera.
Despite clear benefits, 1.7 billion people still lacked basic hand hygiene services at home in 2024, including 611 million with no facility at all. Meeting the 2030 target will require accelerated progress – about a doubling in the global rate, and much faster in specific settings (up to 11-fold in least-developed countries and 8-fold in fragile contexts). Hand hygiene remains one of the most cost-effective health investments, reducing diarrhoea by 30% and acute respiratory infections by 17%, with large, measurable gains for population health.
“Clean hands save lives, but results at scale require policy, financing and accountability,” said Dr Ruediger Krech, Director a.i, Department of Environment, Climate Change, One Health & Migration at the World Health Organization. “These Guidelines help countries move beyond fragmented projects to government-led systems that make soap, water, and conditions conducive to everyday hand hygiene the norm.”
“Children and young people pay the highest price when basic hygiene is out of reach,” said Cecilia Scharp, Director, Water Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) Team, Programme Group, UNICEF. “These Guidelines provide practical steps to ensure facilities are accessible when they need to be – in homes, schools, markets, and transport hubs – so every child can learn, play and thrive with dignity.”
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[Preface]. For more than forty years Primary Health Care (PHC) has been recognized as the cornerstone of an effective and responsive health system. The Alma-Ata Declaration of 1978 reaffirmed the right to the highest attainable level of health, with equity, solidarity and the right to health as its ...core values. It stressed the need for comprehensive health services, not only curative but services that addressed needs in terms of health promotion, prevention, rehabilitation and treatment of common conditions. A strong resolutive first level of care is the basis for health system development [...] The Pan American Health Organization/World Health Organization (PAHO/WHO) has supported the countries in the establishment of interprofessional PHC teams, in the transformation of health education and in building capacity in the strategic planning, and management of human resources for health. Nursing can play a critical role in advancing PHC. New profiles such as the advanced practice nurses, as discussed in this document, can be fundamental in this effort, and in particular, in health promotion, disease prevention and care, especially in rural and underserved areas.
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Este documento traz recomendações para a implementação de planos operacionais em redes de serviços de saúde, tanto na atenção primária (incluindo assistência domiciliar) quanto em hospitais, para reorganizar a entrega dos serviços e ganhar eficiência na gestão e expansão da oferta de l...eitos, considerando a complexidade crescente dos casos. Essas recomendações concentram-se na gestão dos serviços de saúde para reorganizar e expandir a resposta desses serviços de acordo com a evolução da epidemia. Este documento de trabalho será atualizado na medida em que novos conhecimentos e evidências em relação ao SAR-Cov2 forem disponibilizados, e as recomendações fornecidas devem ser adaptadas para a realidade de cada país, considerando-se as características do respectivo sistema de saúde.
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Proporcionar recomendaciones sobre la gestión de cadáveres en el contexto del nuevo coronavirus (COVID-19) en las instalaciones de atención de salud. Estas recomendaciones son preliminares y están sujetas a revisión a medida que se disponga de nuevas evidencias.
Fornecer recomendações sobre manejo de cadáveres no contexto do novo coronavírus (COVID-19) em locais de assistência à saúde. Essas recomendações são preliminares e estão sujeitas à revisão conforme novas evidências forem disponibilizadas.
ARE PEOPLE WITH DIABETES MORE LIKELY TO GET COVID-19?
• People with diabetes are more likely to become seriously ill from COVID-19, than those who do not have diabetes.
• Unfortunately, persons with diabetes who get COVID-19 are more likely to die than those without diabetes.
Este documento é uma atualização das Orientações provisórias da OPAS para o gerenciamento de casos de COVID-19 nos serviços de saúde. A lista de dispositivos médicos prioritários no contexto do vírus COVID-19 fornece descrições técnicas e especificações para o manejo de pacientes com... suspeita e/ou confirmação de infecção por COVID-19 nos diferentes níveis de complexidade do tratamento e para as fases de atendimento. Esclarecemos que a lista incluída neste documento deve ser adaptada ao contexto de cada país da região, de acordo com as necessidades e capacidades de seus sistemas de saúde.
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Global and Regional View of Vaccine Acceptance and Related Behaviors.
This new interactive tool captures information on knowledge, attitudes and behaviors around vaccines, masking, testing and more from 12 million people in 115 countries.
Insights and analyses on how to use the data were written ...by researchers and social and behavior change communication experts at CCP in collaboration with WHO’s Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network. This site is intended to be used by policy makers, health officials and practitioners at national and subnational levels to better understand the behavioral drivers behind vaccine uptake, masking and physical distancing among other behaviors that affect the spread of COVID-19.
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"Tackling Noncommunicable Diseases (NCDs), risk factors and mental health during the time of COVID-19" is a series of high-level strategic discussions on transforming the approach to noncommunicable diseases, its risk factors and mental health as a result of the pandemic in terms of strengthening he...alth systems and services, responding to emergencies, investing to transform the NCD, RF and MH agenda, optimizing partnerships, among others, with a focus on big picture thought leadership.
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Training for Health Care Providers
Facilitators’ Manual
Women, the elderly, adolescents, youth, and children,
persons with disabilities, indigenous populations, refugees,
migrants, and minorities experience the highest degree
of socio-economic marginalization. Marginalized people
become even more vulnerable in emergencies.1 This is due
to factors su...ch as their lack of access to effective surveillance
and early-warning systems, and health services. The
COVID-19 outbreak is predicted to have significant impacts
on various sectors.
The populations most at risk are those that:
• depend heavily on the informal economy;
• occupy areas prone to shocks;
• have inadequate access to social services or political
influence;
• have limited capacities and opportunities to cope and
adapt and;
• limited or no access to technologies.
By understanding these issues, we can support the capacity
of vulnerable populations in emergencies. We can give
them priority assistance, and engage them in decision-making
processes for response, recovery, preparedness, and
risk reduction.
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The incubation period (the time the virus spreads from the peripheral nerves near the site of the bite via the spinal cord to the brain – see transmission and pathogenesis) ranges in general between 2 and 3 month (2 weeks to 6 years are reported) depending on the site of infliction, the amount of ...virus and the virus strain. Due to its neurotropism all known lyssaviruses cause severe neurological symptoms as a result of an acute encephalitis. Therefore, clinical signs in humans and animals are very similar.
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Le présent document rassemble une série de recommandations émises par l’Organisation mondiale de la Santé (OMS) et l’Organisation panaméricaine de la Santé (OPS) pour aider les professionnels chargés des programmes de lutte antivectorielle en Amérique latine et dans les Caraïbes aux niv...eaux national, infranational et local à mettre à jour et prendre des decisions à base factuelle qui touchent les mesures de lutte antivectorielle les mieux adaptées à chaque situation particulière. La GIV peut être utilisée lorsque la cible est la surveillance et la lutte ou l’élimination (en function de chaque situation) des MTV et peut contribuer à réduire le développement de la résistance aux insecticides au moyen de l’utilisation rationnelle de ces produits. Le présent document contient les instructions nécessaires pour mener à bien le mandat établi par l’OPS en 2008 (résolution CD48.R8, document CD48/13), en particulier, il complémente une série de guides de l’OMS publiés en 2012
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Interim emergency guidelines