How WHO works to prevent drug use, reduce harm and improve safe access to medicines
13 April 2021 Policy Brief
This mapping of community experiences for the defense of the right to adequate housing in situations of risk of eviction or eviction in progress brings together practices and strategies used by families, collectives and community organizations that have different origins and interests in the region,... and also those on other continents.
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Background paper 11
The Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response
May 2021
Many African countries were amongst the most rapid to respond to the emerging threat of COVID-19, implementing large-scale interventions at very early stages of their epidemic. As demonstrated in this document using very simple models, this rapid mobilization and timeliness of implementing control m...easures is likely to be an important determinant of their success. Indeed, as these measures were relaxed, subsequent waves of disease have been observed in many countries including South Africa, Kenya, Tunisia, Morocco, Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) where such waves have severely impacted the health system by straining the supply of oxygen and ICU beds and inflicting a heavy toll on healthcare workers, often necessitating the re-imposition of control measures.
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When situations occur in which unwanted events are rightly or wrongly connected with vaccination, they may erode confidence in vaccines and the authorities delivering them. This document presents the scientific evidence behind WHO’s recommendations on building and restoring confidence in vaccines ...and vaccination, both in ongoing work and during crises. The evidence draws on a vast reserve of laboratory research and fieldwork within psychology and communication. It examines how people make decisions about vaccination; why some people are hesitant about vaccination; and the factors that drive a crisis, covering how building trust, listening to and understanding people, building relations, communicating risk and shaping messages to the audiences may mitigate crises. This document provides a knowledge base for stakeholders who develop communication strategies or facilitate workshops on communication and trust-building activities in relation to vaccines and immunization, such as immunization programme units, ministries of health, public relations and health promotion units, vaccine safety communication trainers and immunization advisory bodies.
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This survey of agricultural livelihoods and food security in the context of the impact of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and other shocks was undertaken during February 2021 by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) in 1 380 villages within 129 districts of 20 provinc...es, covering all agro-ecological zones of Afghanistan.
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Nature Medicine, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41591-021-01283-z
The internationally recognized criteria for diagnosis of neurocysticercosis include a requirement for neuroimaging techniques, such as computerized tomography (CT) and/or magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), ideally supported by serology. These facilities are not available in all settings, especially i...n rural areas of low-income countries, making it difficult to identify and treat patients. Additionally, there is controversy about the role, type and duration of anthelmintic, antiinflammatory and antiepileptic drug (AED) treatments for different forms of neurocysticercosis.
These guidelines were developed to assist health-care providers in appropriate, evidence-based management of parenchymal neurocysticercosis. The guidelines do not address other forms of neurocysticercosis and do not include management of extraparenchymal disease (including cysticerci in the cerebral ventricles or subarachnoid space). The aim of the guidance is to improve decision-making to ensure appropriate patient care and to avoid misdiagnoses and inappropriate treatment of patients with neurocysticercosis.
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The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has created a global and gendered crisis that is compounding existing inequalities and disproportionately affecting girls and women. Emerging evidence from the COVID-19 crisis in 2020 shows school closures, disruptions in essential services and rising... poverty contributed to girls’ increased risk of female genital mutilation (FGM). School closures limited the monitoring and reporting of cases of FGM. Rising household monetary poverty may have contributed to families adopting negative coping mechanisms, including having girls undergo FGM as a precursor to marriage to reduce household costs. A report from the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) estimates 2 million additional cases of FGM by 2030 due to the pandemic.
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This report sets out the compelling case for repurposing harmful agricultural producer support to reverse this situation, by optimizing the use of scarce public resources, strengthening economic recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic, and ultimately driving a food systems transformation that can suppor...t global sustainable development commitments.
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The Planetary Health Report Card is a student-driven, metric-based initiative to inspire planetary health and sustainable healthcare education engagement in medical schools. In addition to inspiring expansion of medical school curricula, we hope to inspire medical schools to expand research efforts,... engage with communities most affected by climate change and environmental injustice, support passionate medical students who are trying to organize around planetary health at the institutional level, and implement sustainable practices. A set of metrics in these five category areas allows students and faculty to conduct a needs assessment at their medical school.
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Afr J Thoracic Crit Care Med 2021;27(4):Published online 22 October 2021. https://doi.org/10.7196/AJTCCM.2021.v27i4.173
23 February 2022
A summary of the commitments and targets within the United Nations General Assembly’s 2021 Political Declaration on HIV and AIDS.The United Nations General Assembly’s 2021 Political Declaration on AIDS features bold global commitments and targets for 2025 that are ambitious but... achievable if countries and communities follow the evidence-informed guidance within the Global AIDS Strategy 2021–2026. This UNAIDS publication provides a summary of those commitments and targets to get every country and every community on-track to end AIDS as a public health threat by 2030
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7 April 2022. Aimed at national policymakers, public health and healthcare planners, staff working in reception centres, and healthcare staff caring for displaced persons, the information note concludes that universal testing of incoming refugees from Ukraine for tuberculosis (TB) infection is not r...ecommended. Specific groups, such as household contacts of bacteriologically confirmed pulmonary cases, or those who are immunocompromised should however be considered for TB infection testing.
Available in Czech, Hungarian, Polish, Romanian, Slovakian, Ukranian
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To test for ethnic discrimination in access to outpatient health care services, we carry out
an email-correspondence study in Germany. We approach 3,224 physician offices in the 79
largest cities in Germany with fictitious appointment requests and randomized patients’
characteristics. We find t...hat patients’ ethnicity, as signaled by distinct Turkish versus Ger-
man names, does not affect whether they receive an appointment or wait time. In contrast,
patients with private insurance are 31 percent more likely to receive an appointment. Hold-
ing a private insurance also increases the likelihood of receiving a response and reduces the
wait time. This suggests that physicians use leeway to prioritize privately insured patients
to enhance their earnings, but they do not discriminate persons of Turkish origin based
on taste. Still, their behavior creates means-based barriers for economically disadvantaged
groups.
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The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), the International Organization for Migration (IOM), Georgetown University, and the United Nations University have today launched new guidelines to provide the first-ever global policy framework that will help protect, include, and empower children on the ...move in the context of climate change.
The Guiding Principles for Children on the Move in the Context of Climate Change provides a set of 9 principles that address the unique and layered vulnerabilities of children on the move both internally and across borders as a result of the adverse impacts of climate change. Currently, most child-related migration policies do not consider climate and environmental factors, while most climate change policies overlook the unique needs of children.
The guidelines note that climate change is intersecting with existing environmental, social, political, economic, and demographic conditions contributing to people’s decisions to move. In 2020 alone, nearly 10 million children were displaced in the aftermath of weather-related shocks. With around one billion children – nearly half of the world’s 2.2 billion children – living in 33 countries at high risk of the impacts of climate change, millions more children could be on the move in the coming years.
Developed in collaboration with young climate and migration activists, academics, experts, policymakers, practitioners, and UN agencies, the guiding principles are based on the globally ratified Convention on the Rights of the Child and are further informed by existing operational guidelines and frameworks.
Recommendations for safeguarding the rights and well-being of children regardless of their location or migration status.
The guiding principles provide national and local governments, international organizations and civil society groups with a foundation to build policies that protect children’s rights. The organizations and institutions are calling on governments, local and regional actors, international organizations, and civil society groups to embrace the guiding principles to help protect, include, and empower children on the move in the context of climate change.
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The objective of Health in the Americas: Overview of the Region of the Americas in the Context of the COVID-19 Pandemic is to respond to the need to address important public health issues in an increasingly timely manner, while serving as a platform with a close focus on specific issues of regional ...importance. This 2022 edition is the second in its new format, providing an overview of the analysis, as well as an in-depth description of the key issues related to COVID-19 in the Region of the Americas. This overview is supported by the Health in the Americas+ virtual platform, which offers interactive resources for data analysis and allows for the comparison of information disaggregated by subregions and countries.
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Meeting of the Neglected Tropical Diseases Strategic and Technical Advisory
Group’s Monitoring and Evaluation Subgroup on Disease-specific Indicators