Aligned to the Lancet Migration Global Statement to include migrants and refugees incountries’response to COVID-19, this update focuses on Mexico’s challenges and opportunities to build an inclusive response that is based on a contextualized adaptation of there commendations published by th...e Lancet Migration. A critical component for this analysis is the recognition of migration as a social determinant of health, which acts as a major risk factor for populations subjected to violence, trauma and forced exile while in the face of a global pandemic.
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mnesty International’s annual report on the state of the world’s human rights in 2021, published in March 2022, shows that promises to “build back better” after the Covid-19 pandemic were little more than lip service. Hopes of global cooperation withered in the face of vaccine hoarding and c...orporate greed.
Governments suppressed independent and critical voices, with some even using the pandemic as a pretext to shrink further the civic space. New and unresolved conflicts erupted or persisted. Those forced to flee were subjected to a litany of abuses, including pushbacks by countries in the Global North. But hopes for a better post-pandemic world were kept alive by courageous individuals, social movements and civil society organizations.
The report is available in different languages
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To its credit, Chile has implemented a highly successful vaccine program and taken a number of other important public health measures to improve the well-being of its inhabitants. Nevertheless, these measures have proved insufficient to curb the spread of the virus and ensure full compliance wit...h Chile’s obligations to respect, protect and
fulfil the right to health. It is in this context that this report examines the human rights impacts of the pandemic and the responses of the Chilean authorities.
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COVID-19 is stretching formal and informal aspects of community life. The pandemic is overwhelming health systems. Country economies are reaching a breaking point, with particularly significant impact for the livelihoods of vulnerable families and those dependent on daily wages. COVID-19 is also aff...ecting community relationships and trust. Lack of trust in government leaders or health officials can lead citizens to be unwilling to accept essential health messages and take the necessary steps to combat the spread of the disease. The stress, fear and emotional vulnerabilities of children and their caregivers can be particularly acute, especially in light of prolonged school closures and the uncertainty about their health system’s capacity to withstand the pandemic or how long community and household quarantines will last.
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The Ministry of Education, Arts and Culture (MoEAC) has been implementing the Integrated School Health Programme in various forms since before the country attained political independence in 1990. School health goes beyond the physical health of the learner, in that it includes the holistic wellbeing... of the individual learner, meaning that the school environment should be safe and conducive to learning. The National Safe Schools Framework (NSSF) is an exciting dimension of the Integrated School Health Programme. The Programme focuses on promoting the health, safety and wellbeing of learners and other school stakeholders in Namibia, and the NSSF was developed to provide practical guidance to the schools and school stakeholders on how to systematically improve the standards of school safety, and how to develop a culture of care in any school.
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Fragile Beginnings. The Fragile Beginnings series examines the growing body of research on the unique vulnerabilities of children: in utero and at birth, during infancy and childhood and throughout adolescence. Its purpose is to enable evidence-based advocacy and action on children’s environmental... health
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Integrated Outbreak Analytics (IOA) applies a multidisciplinary approach to understanding outbreak dynamics and to inform outbreak response. It aims to drive comprehensive, accountable, and effective public health and clinical strategies by enabling communities, and national and subnational health a...uthorities to use data for operational decision-making. IOA embraces a holistic perspective of outbreak dynamics throughout: from the trigger questions to the data that are collected or accessed, to the interpretation of results and the recommendations that follow. In addition, IOA promotes co-development and monitoring of evidence informed actions.
The IOA toolkit aims to provide a clear understanding of IOA and highlight the importance of using an integrated, holistic approach to manage outbreak responses. It provides step-by-step guidance for setting up IOA and putting IOA principles into action. Finally, this toolkit provides guidance on applying IOA in humanitarian and emergency contexts, offering a practical and adaptable approach to informing public health emergency responses.
Developed based on the model from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), its creation involved extensive consultation with experts experienced in IOA applications. The toolkit was piloted in Tanganyika Province, DRC, as well as Somalia and Sudan, demonstrating its adaptability to diverse emergency scenarios. It builds upon an existing array of tools, templates, reports, case studies, animations, and publications used by stakeholders in diverse contexts.
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The Guidelines for the Use of the APCA African Palliative Outcome Scale (POS) has been developed by the APCA, in collaboration with
stakeholders, to help appropriately trained health practitioners and researchers across the region to utilise the APCA African POS in their work place (Powell et... al, 2007; Warria et al, 2007). Not only do the guidelines provide a clear rationale for measuring palliative care outcomes, but they also outline practical information on how to use the tool to collect data and analyse its results. So why is there a need for these guidelines?
Palliative care as a concept and discipline is not well understood across Africa, and its development is still embryonic in many countries. While there are many obstacles that hinder palliative care development on the continent, a key challenge is the lack of accurate information about the palliative care being provided and its outcomes. The APCA African POS is a useful tool to help us measure these outcomes and, given that
measuring palliative care outcomes remains a relatively new concept, it is important to guide people on how to use the tool. Of course, these guidelines are not intended to address everything related to the measurement of palliative care outcomes; they contain only essential information for providers. More detailed information on the use of outcome tools, and in particular within the research setting, can be gained from contacting relevantly trained professionals.
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The 2014–2015 Ebola epidemic in western Africa was the longest and most deadly Ebola epidemic in history, resulting in 28,616 cases and 11,310 deaths in Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone. The Ebola virus has been known since 1976, when two separate outbreaks were identified in the Democratic Repub...lic of Congo (then Zaire) and South Sudan (then Sudan). However, because all Ebola outbreaks prior to that in West Africa in 2014–2015 were relatively isolated and of short duration, little was known about how to best manage patients to improve survival, and there were no approved therapeutics or vaccines. When the World Heath Organization declared the 2014-2015 epidemic a public health emergency of international concern in August 2014, several teams began conducting formal clinical trials in the Ebola affected countries during the outbreak.
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In the Indian state of Bihar, visceral leishmaniasis (VL) is a major public health issue that has been aggravated by the rising incidence of new Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infections. In endemic areas, the risk of VL infections in patients living with HIV (PLHIV) is higher. It is important t...o investigate the disease-related knowledge, attitude, and practices (KAP) of PLHIV in Bihar in order to monitor HIV/VL co-infection. Adequate knowledge, a positive attitude, and good practices for VL control are essential to stamp out the disease. This study investigated the KAP towards VL in HIV patients attending antiretroviral therapy (ART) clinic at ICMR-RMRIMS, Patna.
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Guidelines for Good Clinical Laboratory Practices (GCLP) outlines the principles and procedures to be followed by medical laboratories involved in clinical research and/or patient care so as to provide quality data which can be used for health research and patient treatment. As the use of laboratory... tests (often expensive) are increasingly becoming a part of medical diagnosis and research, generation of quality data would be a cost-effective and ethically sound strategy.
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The document, "Progress on the Prevention and Control of Non-Communicable Diseases," reports on global efforts to reduce the impact of NCDs, such as heart disease, cancer, diabetes, and chronic respiratory diseases, following the commitments made at high-level United Nations meetings. It highlights ...the inadequate progress in meeting the targets set under the Sustainable Development Goal 3.4 to reduce premature NCD mortality by one-third by 2030. Key challenges include insufficient funding, limited implementation of effective interventions, and political and economic barriers, especially in low-income countries. The report calls for strengthened international cooperation, policy reform, and innovative approaches to meet global health targets.
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AMR is a serious and growing global problem. A WHO report released in 2014 stated that this serious threat is no longer a prediction for the future it is happening now in every region of the world and has potential to affect anyone, of any age in any community – a real threat to the public health.... The coming together of the various important stakeholders to develop this document is the testimony of their agreement of how serious is the issue at hand and their intentions to combat AMR is translated into an Action Plan. WHO also reported that there are about 2 million people in the US are infected with the AMR organism while 23,000 die annually from AMR infections. Fiji is just 10 hours journey away from the United States of America therefore Fiji must act now to keep our population safe from AMR organisms.
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It is now well known that there is a pandemic of Type 2 Diabetes in the world particularly in developing countries. This fact has several implications for the health care system in the developing countries because this condition is associated with metabolic and vascular complications which in turn i...ncreases the mortality and health care costs and compromises the quality and life expectancy of the society.
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The primary role of Benin’s Department of Pharmacy and Medicines (DPMED) is to develop and apply the national pharmaceutical policy. The main objective of this policy is to ensure the availability and accessibility of quality medicines for the population. To fulfill its mandate, DPMED aims to stre...ngthen its regulatory capacity, including the issuance of licenses to pharmaceutical establishments and the registration of pharmaceutical products. Benin’s current registration system shares core concerns that are common to most developing countries, notably the capacity to evaluate and monitor the security, efficacy, and quality of medicines and other health products. It is currently characterized by 1) poor or inadequate traceability of records or regulations (example: a product’s marketing authorization [MA] is often hard to find); 2) lack of evidence used in the regulatory decision-making process (reasons behind special import authorization, i.e., products without valid MAs); 3) inconsistent and unsecured archiving system; 4) limited human resources; and 5) an inefficient information management system
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The National Action Plan for Combating Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria (CARB), 2020-2025, presents
coordinated, strategic actions that the United States Government will take in the next five years to improve the health and wellbeing of all Americans by changing the course of antibiotic resistance.
T...his Plan is based on the U.S. Government’s 2014 National Strategy for CARB, and builds on the first National Action Plan released in 2015 by expanding evidence-based activities that have already been shown to reduce antibiotic resistance, such as optimizing the use of antibiotics in human and animal health settings.
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MEDBOX Issue Brief 26. Cholera is an acute diarrhoeal infection caused by eating or drinking food or water that is contaminated with the
bacterium Vibrio cholerae. Cholera remains a global threat to public health and is an indicator of inequity and lack of
social development. Researchers have esti...mated that every year, there are 1.3 to 4.0 million cases of cholera, and 21
000 to 143 000 deaths worldwide due to the infection.
However, cholera remains a neglected and underreported disease. Many cases are not recorded due to limitations in
surveillance systems and fears of potential impact on trade or tourism.
Today cholera affects 47 countries across the globe. Almost every developing country faces cholera outbreaks or
the threat of cholera. Major ongoing outbreaks are being reported from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Democratic
Republic of Congo, Ethiopia and Nigeria. Major outbreaks are currently in Syria and Haiti.
Therefore, MEDBOX decided to produce issue briefs on cholera and available resources in Arabic, English and
French.
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Human rights must be at the centre of all prevention, preparedness, containment and treatment efforts from the start, in order to best protect public health and support the groups and people who are most at risk. States have an obligation to protect and guarantee everyone the right to the highest at...tainable standard of health.
All European states have committed to fulfilling the right to health and have signed international and regional human rights treaties to that purpose. In the context of the current pandemic, authorities should engage all available resources to counter the pandemic while fulfilling the right to health.
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Myanmar continues to experience a severe - and worsening - humanitarian and human rights crisis. Conflict and violence have escalated across the country, impacting children and their families and displacing more than 1.5 million people. Access of conflict-affected populations to services and deliver...y of humanitarian assistance has been further constrained by restrictions imposed on movement of both people and goods.
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The article outlines the prioritized research agenda for the prevention and control of chronic respiratory diseases (CRDs) as part of the World Health Organization's (WHO) action plan on noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) from 2008 to 2013. It highlights the significant global impact of CRDs, including... asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), and other related conditions, particularly in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). The document stresses the need for effective prevention strategies and better surveillance, as well as enhanced healthcare infrastructure and resources in LMICs. It calls for research into CRD risk factors, effective interventions, and integrated care approaches that align with broader NCD prevention programs. The article emphasizes the importance of public health initiatives and cross-sector collaborations to reduce the disease burden and improve patient outcomes.
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