The WHO and UNICEF-led Hand Hygiene for All Initiative aims at ensuring implementation for WHO's global recommendations on hand hygiene to prevent and control COVID-19 pandemic, and hand hygiene improvement sustainability in countries as a mainstay of wider infection prevention and control (IPC) and... water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) efforts.
But how can hand hygiene implementation be successful? By implementing strategies and approaches proven through the successes of the WHO Save Lives: Clean Your Hands campaign and fostering integration between hand hygiene and WASH improvements. This brief draws on learning from legacy work and the current evidence based and summarizes how joint action and collaboration are essential for successful strategies, in the context of the COVID-19 response and beyond
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This chapter discusses the antibacterial treatment of leprosy infections. Antibiotic treatment is
a key component of leprosy treatment, as it is vital to prevent the progression of the infection.
Treatment with rifampin and other antibiotics is highly effective and cures 98% of patients with
the ...leprosy infection. Furthermore, the relapse rate is very low, at about 1% over 5–10 years.
There is little M. leprae drug resistance in leprosy and few reports of multi-drug resistance (1, 2, 3,
4, 5, 6, 7, 8). An antibiotic treatment may take months or years to produce clinical improvement,
especially in patients with an initial high bacterial index (BI).
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Módulo 9
Planificación estratégica
Julio del 2017
Módulo 9: Planificación estratégica. La OMS recomienda ofrecer la PrEP a las personas con un riesgo significativo de contraer la infección por el VIH, por lo que este módulo ofrece orientación de salud pública para los encargados de ...tomar decisiones sobre cómo priorizar los servicios, con el fin de llegar a quienes se pueden beneficiar más de la PrEP, y sobre los entornos donde los servicios de PrEP podrían ser más costo-efectivos.
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22 July 2022. This document summarizes current WHO guidance for public health surveillance of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in humans caused by infection with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2).
Health workers are at the front line of the COVID-19 outbreak response and as such are exposed to hazards that put them at risk of infection. Hazards include pathogen exposure, long working hours, psychological distress, fatigue, occupational burnout, stigma, and physical and psychological violence.... This document highlights the rights and responsibilities of health workers, including the specific measures needed to protect occupational safety and health.
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While many of the countries hit by the COVID-19 in the first few months of the year are now beginning to relax lockdown measures as infection and death rates fall, in the regions most affected by HIV, TB and malaria, such as Africa, South Asia and Latin America, the pandemic continues to accelerate.... In lower resource settings, lockdowns are less effective and hard to sustain, and clinical care facilities are extremely limited. In such environments, the response to COVID-19 must focus on containing the pandemic’s spread as far as possible through testing, contact tracing and isolation, protecting the health workforce through training and the provision of personal protective equipment (PPE) and minimizing the knock-on impact on other diseases through shoring up fragile health systems, and adapting existing disease programs.
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In South Africa, young women and girls are exposed to extremely high levels of gender-based violence (GBV) and HIV infection. Given the links between the two epidemics, it is important that HIV prevention programmes also address violence against women and children. The Global Fund’s Young Women an...d Girls (YWG) programme is a multi-pronged HIV prevention programme targeting young women and girls and was implemented in 10 districts in South Africa from April 2016 to March 2019. This briefing paper reports on the lessons learnt from a process evaluation of the child protection component of the programme
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Los residuos generados por las actividades sanitarias, desde agujas infectadas hasta isótopos radiactivos, pueden ser una fuente de infecciones o lesiones y su gestión inadecuada puede tener graves consecuencias para la salud pública y efectos nocivos para el medio ambiente.
...staca los aspectos clave de la gestión segura de los residuos médicos para orientar a los responsables políticos, a los profesionales y a los gestores de las instalaciones para mejorar estos servicios en los centros sanitarios.
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El documento "Lista de productos sanitarios prioritarios para la respuesta a COVID-19 y especificaciones técnicas asociadas" complementa esta directriz.
Este documento proporciona una orientación provisional sobre la calidad, las características de rendimiento y las normas conexas de los equi...pos de protección personal (EPP) que se utilizarán en el contexto de COVID-19. Esto incluye los productos sanitarios prioritarios de la OMS, concretamente: mascarillas quirúrgicas, mascarillas no quirúrgicas, guantes, gafas, protectores faciales, batas y mascarillas N95. Está dirigido a los organismos de adquisición, los departamentos de salud laboral, los departamentos o puntos focales de prevención y control de infecciones, los administradores de los centros de salud, la ingeniería biomédica y de materiales, los fabricantes de EPI y las autoridades de salud pública, tanto a nivel nacional como de los centros.
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National action plans on antimicrobial resistance (AMR) often overlook the critical intersection of gender, despite evidence that exposure and susceptibility to infection, health-seeking behaviours, as well as antimicrobial prescribing and use patterns are all influenced by gender.
About one fourth of the world’s population is estimated to have been infected with the tuberculosis (TB) bacilli, and about 5–10% of those infected develop TB disease in their lifetime. The risk for TB disease after infection depends on several factors, the most important being the person’s im...munological status. TB preventive treatment (TPT) given to people at highest risk of progressing from TB infection to disease remains a critical element to achieve the global targets of the End TB Strategy, as reiterated by the second UN High Level Meeting on TB in 2023. Delivering TPT effectively and safely necessitates a programmatic approach to implement a comprehensive package of interventions along a cascade of care: identifying individuals at highest risk, screening for TB and ruling out TB disease, testing for TB infection, and choosing the preventive treatment option that is best suited to an individual, managing adverse events, supporting medication adherence and monitoring programmatic performance
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Effective monitoring, epidemiological assessment and evaluation are necessary to achieve the aim of interrupting LF transmission. This manual is designed to ensure that national elimination programmes have available the best information on methodologies and procedures for monitoring MDA, appropriate...ly assessing when infection has been reduced to levels where transmission is likely no longer sustainable, implementing adequate surveillance after MDA has ceased to determine whether recrudescence has occurred, and preparing for verification of the absence of transmission. The manual provides general guidance to national programmes; relevant background information on technical issues is contained in the annexes. As real-life situations may not correspond to predefined categories, consultation with WHO and experts is recommended in complicated situations.
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interim Guidance 1 December 2020. Updated version
This document provides updated guidance on mask use in health care and community settings, and during home care for COVID-19 cases. It is intended for policy makers, public health and infection prevention and control professionals, health care manag...ers and health workers.
The Annex provides advice on how to manufacture non-medical masks. It is intended for those making non-medical masks at home and for mask manufacturers
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Bulletin of the World Health Organization 2016. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.2471/BLT.16.171082
Objective: To describe the temporal and geographical distribution of Zika virus infection, and associated neurological disorders, from 1947 to February 2016.
In the 126 years since it was first described, scientists have learned a great deal about Buruli ulcer, (an ulcerating skin infection caused by the environmental bacterium, Mycobacterium ulcerans), including how to treat it. Yet, there is 1 question about this neglected tropical disease that has rem...ained unanswered: how is M. ulcerans transmitted to humans? In southeastern Australia, where Buruli ulcer is endemic and cases are increasing, researchers are putting together the M. ulcerans transmission puzzle. The more they learn, the better equipped they will be for managing infections.
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March 2020
The number of African Union Member States reporting COVID-
19 cases is increasing and there is a likelihood of community transmission. The WHO recently modified the COVID-19 suspect case definition to include severe acute respiratory infection and advises testing of all severe acute r...espiratory illness (SARI) cases.1 However, many Member States have not yet started implementing these changes, they are still focussing surveillance efforts on individuals with travel history to an area with local COVID-19 transmission. This means patients with similar symptoms, but no apparent contact, may not
be investigated.
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This publication provides recommendations for the management of critically ill adult patients with COVID-19 being treated in intensive care units (ICUs) in the Americas. These clinical practice guidelines provide evidence-informed recommendations for identifying markers and mortality risk factors in... critically ill patients, as well as infection control, sample collection, supportive care (respiratory and hemodynamic), pharmacological treatment, early rehabilitation, diagnostic imaging use, prevention of complications, and discharge requirements. The recommendations are for all health care staff caring for patients in emergency departments and ICUs. These guidelines are also intended for use by decisionmakers and government entities involved in the management of patients with COVID-19 in ICUs in the Region of the Americas.
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Test de connaissances avant formation. ATELIER DE FORMATION DU PERSONNEL DE LABORATOIRE SUR LA PREVENTION DE L’INFECTION A VIRUS EBOLA
Buruli ulcer (BU), a neglected tropical disease (NTD), is an infection of the skin and subcutaneous tissue caused by Mycobacterium ulcerans. The disease has been documented in many South American, Asian, and Western Pacific countries and is widespread throughout much of Africa, especially in West... and Central Africa.
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The document "Priority medical devices list for the COVID-19 response and associated technical specifications" complements this guideline.
This document provides interim guidance on the quality, performance characteristics and related standards of personal protective equipment (PPE) to be used i...n the context of COVID-19. This includes WHO Priority Medical Devices, specifically: surgical masks, non-surgical masks, gloves, googles, face shields, gowns and N95 masks. It is intended for procurement agencies, occupational health departments, infection prevention and control departments or focal points, health facility administrators, biomedical and materials engineering, PPE manufacturers and public health authorities at both national and facility levels.
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