Only 8,730 asylum applications were registered in the EU+ in April, the lowest since at least 2008, and a massive 87% decrease from pre-COVID-19 levels in January and February.
The European Asylum Support Office (EASO) has released a special report which shows that the COVID-19 related travel restr...ictions and national health measures which were imposed during the past few months led to a dramatic cut in asylum applications in Europe.
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The twentieth century ended with human African trypanosomiasis (HAT) epidemics raging across many parts of Africa. Resistance to existing drugs was emerging, and many programs aiming to contain the disease had ground to a halt, given previous success against HAT and the competing priorities associat...ed with other medical crises ravaging the continent. A series of dedicated interventions and the introduction of innovative routes to develop drugs, involving Product Development Partnerships, has led to a dramatic turnaround in the fight against HAT caused by Trypanosoma brucei gambiense. The World Health Organization have been able to optimize the use of existing tools to monitor and intervene in the disease. A promising new oral medication for stage 1 HAT, pafuramidine maleate, ultimately failed due to unforeseen toxicity issues. However, the clinical trials for this compound demonstrated the possibility of conducting such trials in the resource-poor settings of rural Africa.
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For public health emergencies, risk communication includes the range of communication capacities required through the preparedness, response and recovery phases of a serious public health event to encourage informed decision making, positive behaviour change and the maintenance of trust.
Risk commu...nication used to be viewed primarily as the dissemination of information to the public about health risks and events, such as outbreaks of disease and instructions on how to change behaviour to mitigate those risks. Thinking on this has now evolved dramatically as social science evidence and new communication and media technologies and practices have evolved in the 21st century.
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Despite its rich culture, great economic potential, high level of education and last but not least its sheer size – it is the largest state whose borders lie entirely within Europe and is 1.7 times the size of the Federal Republic of Germany – Ukraine seems far away in perception and awareness. ...Publications on recent dramatic events, such as the Ukraine conflict or the Crimea crisis, have done little to change this. In fact, the armed conflict in the eastern Ukrainian oblasts of Donetsk and Luhansk, which has been ongoing since February 2014, is still a burdening feature of many political and economic difficulties destabilizing the country. News coverage of health issues in Ukraine has recently been dominated by highly critical reports on the handling of the Covid 19 pandemic. This pandemic exacerbated existing weaknesses in the Ukrainian health care system, but at least it did not create any new ones.
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Bangladesh has been going through incremental trend of GDP growth rates for a long time. The GDP is the key aspect to measure the economic growth of a country. But the current world wide pandemic due to the COVID-19 hardly affects the world’s economy as well as Bangladesh. The present... lockdown make the wheel of the industries uncertain. The main source of the GDP of this country is ready made garment sector which has been shut down since mid of March 2020. Already 20 billion of cancellation of foreign order makes the situation worse. Also, the foreign remittance has been decline dramatically due to the loss of jobs of Bangladeshi workers in foreign countries. The overall economic situation declines in this country due to the COVID-19 which has huge impact on the health care system especially in maternal and child health. In this paper, the economic situation of Bangladesh before and during the COVID-19 has been shown. Also, how the COVID-19 would affect the condition
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SARS-COV-2 antigen rapid diagnostic tests are an alternative option for diagnosing active SARS-CoV-2 infection through detection of viral proteins. Rapid antigen tests revolutionize the response to COVID-19 by providing accurate test results in 10 to 20 minutes instead of days, allowing tests to be ...done at point of care, and dramatically lowering the price of the tests.
Proper training on the safe use and implementation of antigen tests is vital to ensuring quality testing. A comprehensive training package around safety, sample collection, testing, reporting and management of antigen tests can be found below.
The training package includes facilitators’ guides for master trainers and trainers, training presentations, and supplementary materials to aid in the delivery of this training.
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The Lancet Planetary Health Volume 6, ISSUE 4, e342-e349, April 01, 2022. Human impacts on earth-system processes are overshooting several planetary boundaries, driving a crisis of ecological breakdown. This crisis is being caused in large part by global resource extraction, which has increased dra...matically over the past half century. We propose a novel method for quantifying national responsibility for ecological breakdown by assessing nations’ cumulative material use in excess of equitable and sustainable boundaries.
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The COVID-19 pandemic is causing untold fear and suffering for older people across the world. As of 26 April, the virus itself has already taken the lives of some 193,710 people, and fatality rates for those over 80 years of age is five times the global average. As the virus spreads rapidly to devel...oping countries, likely overwhelming health and social protection systems, the mortality rate for older persons could climb even higher.
Less visible but no less worrisome are the broader effects: health care denied for conditions unrelated to COVID-19; neglect and abuse in institutions and care facilities; an increase in poverty and unemployment; the dramatic impact on well-being and mental health; and the trauma of stigma and discrimination.
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Chagas is a parasitic disease that affects over 6 million people in the
world. As the disease typically remains asymptomatic for years, new cases
often go unnoticed and unreported, and most people with the disease
are unaware of their condition. Less than 10% of people affected are
diagnosed and... the vast majority do not receive the treatment they need.
If not treated, Chagas may cause irreversible, life-threatening damage to
the heart and other vital organs.
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Complete version of MDS-3 publication - Managing Drug Supply (MDS) is the leading reference on how to manage essential medicines in developing countries. MDS was originally published in 1982. It was revised in 1997 with over 10,000 copies distributed in over 60 countries worldwide. The third edition..., MDS-3: Managing Access to Medicines and other Health Technologies reflects the dramatic changes in politics and public health priorities, advances in science and medicine, greater focus on health care systems, increased donor funding, and the advent of information technology that have profoundly affected access to essential medicines over the past 14 years.
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The COVID-19 pandemic’s immediate costs, measured in lives lost and damaged, have been appalling and continue to rise. In addition, its effects on individuals’ livelihoods and economies around the world have been deep and are likely to be long lasting. While saving lives was the near-exclusive f...ocus during the first phase of the crisis, governments are now trying to strike a delicate balance between preventing further economic damage by reopening parts of their economies, while managing the obvious health risks of doing so.
In the international mobility and migration arenas—policy areas enormously affected by the health and economic effects of the pandemic—this reflection considers both how these fields have fared thus far and the challenges that lay ahead
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In northern Myanmar, nearly 100,000 people continue to live in displacement camps in Kachin and northern Shan States. Most were first displaced by fighting between the Myanmar military and the Kachin Independence Army in 2011, and many have been displaced multiple times, including in recent months. ...Approaching seven years of displacement, and despite ongoing and often increasing needs, displaced persons in northern Myanmar face decreasing aid and protection services. Over the past two years, the Government of Myanmar has dramatically increased restrictions on delivery of aid to this displaced population at the same time that the overall amount of aid provided by international donors has decreased.
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This report is primarily intended for the community of policymakers and researchers concerned about the rising risks of domestic, regional, and global infectious disease epidemics, and the collective failure to take the coordinated actions required to reduce such risks. These risks include the expec...ted health, economic, and societal costs that are borne by countries, regions, and even all nations in the case of pandemics (which are worldwide epidemics). These risks also include the consequences of increasing antimicrobial resistance (AMR) and its spread within regions and globally. A necessary first step is to monitor whether a broad range of stakeholders are acting to prevent outbreaks from becoming epidemics, whether their capacities to respond to epidemics are robust, and whether preparedness to respond to pandemics and limit the resulting economic and health damage is improving. Analyzing the adequacy of these efforts is vitally important for the decisions of policymakers to invest in the public health and disaster-risk management capacities. Early and effective control of disease outbreaks prevents substantial health and economic costs whether or not the disease can spread globally and become a pandemic.
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The Global Programme to Eliminate Lymphatic Filariasis (LF) is using mass drug administration (MDA) of antifilarial medications to treat filarial infections, prevent disease and interrupt transmission. Almost 500 million people receive these medications each year. Clinical trials have recently shown... that a single dose of a triple-drug combination comprised of ivermectin, diethylcarbamazine and albendazole (IDA) is dramatically superior to widely used two-drug combinations for clearing larval filarial parasites from the blood of infected persons. A large mul-
ticenter community study showed that IDA was well-tolerated when it was provided as MDA. IDA was rapidly advanced from clinical trial to policy and implementation; it has the potential to accelerate LF elimination in many endemic countries.
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The Malawi National Strategic Plan (NSP) for HIV and AIDS 2020–2025 is the guiding document for the multi-sectoral response to the HIV epidemic for the next five years. It succeeds the 2015-2020 HIV NSP, building on previous achievements and addressing areas that need improvement with the goal of ...meeting 95:95:95 targets and eliminating HIV as a public health threat by 2030. Implementation of the previous NSP contributed to the dramatic decline in the number of new infections from 111,000 in 1992 to 33,000 in 2019 and the decline in AIDS deaths from 71,000 in 2004 to 13,000 in 2019.1 As of September 2019, progress on the 90:90:90 UNAIDS Fast-Track targets was 93:84:92.
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UN, international agencies and experts released a groundbreaking report demanding immediate, coordinated and ambitious action to avert a potentially disastrous drug-resistance crisis.
If no action is taken - warns the UN Ad hoc Interagency Coordinating Group on Antimicrobial Resistance who release...d the report – drug-resistant diseases could cause 10 million deaths each year by 2050 and damage to the economy as catastrophic as the 2008-2009 global financial crisis. By 2030, antimicrobial resistance could force up to 24 million people into extreme poverty.
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Bolkan HA, Bash-Taqi DA, Samai M, Gerdin M, von Schreeb J. Ebola and Indirect Effects on Health Service Function in Sierra Leone. PLOS Currents Outbreaks. 2014 Dec 19. Edition 1. doi: 10.1371/currents.outbreaks.0307d588df619f9c9447f8ead5b72b2d.
Inpatient health services have been severely affecte...d by the Ebola outbreak. The dramatic documented decline in facility inpatient admissions and major surgery is likely to be an underestimation. Reestablishing such care is urgent and must be a priority.
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This document summarizes Haiti's cholera situation as of November 16, 2016. Between January and October 2016, Haiti reported 35,203 new suspected cholera cases (32% increase from 2015) and 369 deaths (56% increase). After Hurricane Matthew, cases rose dramatically, with 52% of new cases concentrated... in Grand'Anse and South departments. Since the 2010 outbreak began, Haiti had experienced 797,000 total cases and 9,353 deaths. The report identifies key factors contributing to cholera persistence: weak water and sanitation infrastructure, limited healthcare access, underfunding, population density, and mobility. Despite concerning trends, humanitarian partners were cautiously optimistic as a feared nationwide outbreak following Hurricane Matthew had not materialized, and a vaccination campaign was underway. However, the cholera response was significantly underfunded, with only 42% of requested funds received.
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In order to maintain daily operations and patient care services, health care facilities need to develop an Emergency Water Supply Plan (EWSP) to prepare for, respond to, and recover from a total or partial interruption of the facilities’ normal water supply. Water supply interruption can be caused... by several types of events such as natural disaster, a failure of the community water system, construction damage or even an act of terrorism.
The planning guide provides a four step process for the development of an EWSP:
1. Assemble the appropriate EWSP Team and the necessary background documents for your facility;
2. Understand your water usage by performing a water use audit;
3. Analyze your emergency water supply alternatives; and
4. Develop and exercise your EWSP
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At 4:17 in the morning on 6 February, a magnitude 7.8
earthquake struck northwestern Turkey. According to
latest reports, this enormous tremor has already caused
over 16,000 deaths in both Turkey, and Syria while over
20,000 are reportedly injured. At least 20 strong
aftershocks have also been ...reported in southern and
central Turkey and will likely continue for the next several
days. The damage has been incredible, with dozens of
cities and town experiencing severe damage to
infrastructure.
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