5 May 2021
This Information Note is intended to assist national TB programmes and health personnel worldwide to maintain essential tuberculosis (TB) services during the COVID-19 pandemic and in the recovery phase. It is important that recent progress made in TB prevention and care is not reversed b...y COVID-19. The WHO Global TB Programme, along with WHO regional and country offices, developed this note in response to questions received from Member States and other partners since the start of the pandemic. The note includes references to other published WHO information products relevant to TB practitioners. WHO continues to monitor the situation closely for any changes that may influence this note and will issue updates should any factors change.
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SBMFC Recommendations for PHC during the Pandemic of COVID-19 (edition 4)
This document answers questions and gives recommendations so that the Brazilian PHC can quickly receive the best possible scientific synthesis on the current situation of the pandemic of COVID-19
A new report released today documents an “invisible wall” which has blocked migrants from accessing basic services since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, and is now preventing them from accessing vaccines.
2 March 2021
Protracted displacement, socio-economic crises aggravated by the COVID-19 pandemic, dire humanitarian needs and protection threats continue to affect the Palestine refugees in Syria, Lebanon and Jordan.
In Syria, the protracted conflict has left 91 per cent of the 438,000 Palestine re...fugees1 estimated to remain in the country in absolute poverty2 and 40 per cent displaced.
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Policy Brief.
Our understanding of how to diagnose and manage Long COVID is still evolving but the condition can be very debilitating. It is associated with a range of overlapping symptoms including generalized chest and muscle pain, fatigue, shortness of breath, and cognitive dysfunction, and the ...mechanisms involved affect multiple system and include persisting inflammation, thrombosis, and autoimmunity. It can affect anyone, but women and health care workers seem to be at greater risk.
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Updated guidance. The guidance provides useful information to staff working in prisons, as well as to health and prison authorities, explaining how to prevent and address a potential outbreak of COVID-19. In addition, it aims to protect the health and well-being of all those who live and work in, an...d visit, these settings and the general population at large. People deprived of their liberty, and living or working in enclosed environments in close proximity, are likely to be more vulnerable to the COVID-19 disease than the general population. Moreover, correctional facilities may amplify and enhance COVID-19 transmission beyond their walls.
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1 February 2021 to 31 January 2022
Emergency medical teams (EMTs) play an important role in strengthening health service networks in terms of their strategies and tactics for planning mass vaccination programs, especially in remote or under-resourced areas or those overwhelmed by COVID-19. EMTs experience deploying in remote areas an...d handling operational challenges to ensure their response even under the most austere conditions will be of great support in facing the technical and logistical challenges to timely and equitable access to vaccines at the local level.
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2020 was a year like no other. Amidst on-going humanitarian crises, largely fuelled by conflict and violence but also driven by the effects of climate change – such as the largest locust infestation in a generation – the world had to contend with a global pandemic. In less than one year (March-D...ecember 2020), more than 82 million COVID-19 cases and 1.8 million deaths were recorded. In that timeframe, out of the global COVID-19 totals, 30 per cent of COVID-19 cases and 39 per cent deaths were recorded in GHRP countries.
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Globally, approximately 56.8 million people are in need of palliative care
services; 78% of them living in low and middle-income country yet only
about 12% have their needs being met causing great suffering for many.
his Inter Action Review report for the COVID-19 outbreak in Mauritius documents and assesses the country’s capacity to respond to the outbreak and identifies the best practices, strengths, gaps and challenges of the national response. Areas requiring improvements or sustained actions have been ide...ntified across the 9 strategic pillars of World Health Organization (WHO)’s COVID-19 Strategic Preparedness and Response Plan and an additional pillar for the country’s response beyond health. On an overall, the review aims to enhance and sustain the national response with a particular focus on strengthening the health systems.
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31 Janaury 2021
SCORE for health data technical package. The first global assessment on the status and capacity of health information systems in 133 countries, covering 87% of the global population.
It identifies gaps and provides guidance for investment in areas that can have the greatest impact ...on the quality, availability, analysis, accessibility and use of health data.
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To support countries in adapting their response to different COVID-19 scenarios, the World Health
Organization (WHO) Department of Maternal, Newborn, Child and Adolescent Health and Ageing commissioned this scoping review of published and grey literature. The objective was to identify interventions... implemented to maintain the provision and use of essential services for MNCAAH during disruptive events and to summarize lessons learned during these interventions. The review included outbreaks of Ebola virus disease (EVD), severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), Zika virus disease (ZVD), the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, and natural disasters and humanitarian emergencies that caused disruption to services, transport and other activities.
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Available in English, French, Spanish and Russian from the website https://apps.who.int/iris/handle/10665/344562
Oxfam’s report found that Covid-19 has the potential to increase economic inequality in almost every country at once, the first time this has happened since records began over a century ago. It sets out how a rigged economy is enabling a super-rich elite to amass wealth in the middle of the worst ...recession since the Great Depression, while billions of people are struggling amid the worst job crisis in over 90 years. Unless rising inequality is tackled, half a billion more people could be living in poverty on less than $5.50 (£4.00) a day in 2030, than at the start of the pandemic.
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14 January 2021
This practical guide can be used to help countries monitor and analyse the impact of COVID-19 on essential health services to inform planning and decision-making. It provides practical recommendations on how to use key performance indicators to analyse changes in access to and deliv...ery of essential health services within the context of the COVID-19 pandemic; how to visualize and interpret these data; and how to use the findings to guide modifications for safe delivery of services and transitioning towards restoration and recovery. The guide focuses on existing indicators and data that are captured in routine reporting systems and how they can be used by national and subnational authorities to understand specific contexts, challenges and bottlenecks. This guide supports Maintaining essential health services: operational guidance for the COVID-19 context, which provides an integrated framework to guide countries in their efforts to reorganize, adapt and maintain safe delivery of high-priority essential health services within the context of the pandemic.
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This paper reviews the effects of vertical responses to COVID-19 on health systems, services, and people’s access to and use of them in LMICs, where historic and ongoing under-investments heighten vulnerability to a multiplicity of health threats. We use the term ‘vertical response’ to describ...e decisions, measures and actions taken solely with the purpose of preventing and containing COVID-19, often without adequate consideration of how this affects the wider health system and pre-existing resource constraints.
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The Lancet Countdown is an international collaboration that independently monitors the health consequences of a changing climate. Publishing updated, new, and improved indicators each year, the Lancet Countdown represents the
consensus of leading researchers from 43 academic institutions and UN ag...encies. The 44 indicators of this report expose an unabated rise in the health impacts of
climate change and the current health consequences of the delayed and inconsistent response of countries around the globe—providing a clear imperative for accelerated action that puts the health of people and planet above all else.The 2021 report coincides with the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change 26th Conference of the Parties (COP26), at which countries are facing pressure to realise the ambition of the Paris Agreement to keep the global average temperature rise to 1·5°C and to
mobilise the financial resources required for all countries to have an effective climate response. These negotiations unfold in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic—a global health crisis that has claimed millions of lives, affected livelihoods and communities around the globe, and exposed deep fissures and inequities in the world’s capacity to cope with, and respond to, health emergencies. Yet, in its response to both crises, the world is faced with an unprecedented opportunity to ensure a healthy future for all.
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The frequency of infectious disease epidemics is increasing, and the role of the health sector in the management of epidemics is crucial in terms of response. In the context of infectious disease epidemics, the use of climate-informed early warning systems (EWS) has the potential to increase the eff...ectiveness of disease control by intervening before or at the beginning of the epidemic curve, instead of during the downward slope.
Currently, the initiation of interventions is heavily reliant on routine disease surveillance systems – data that often arrive too late for preventative response. However, forecasting of disease outbreaks using surveillance and weather information shows promising potential – there also remains further scope to examine seasonal climate forecasts. By combining these elements in new EWS based on computational models, it will be possible to improve both the timeliness and impact of disease control. The World Health Organization (WHO) is strengthening existing surveillance systems for infectious diseases to enable the development of more robust and timely EWS, which has resulted in the rapid development and innovation of EWS for disease outbreaks.
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