The document "Combating False Information on Vaccines: A Guide for Health Workers" is designed to help health workers address vaccine misinformation. It begins by defining misinformation and explaining why it spreads rapidly, often due to its emotional appeal and simplistic explanations. The guide i...dentifies common sources of vaccine misinformation, including influential individuals who profit from spreading false information. The document outlines strategies for combating misinformation, emphasizing the importance of health workers as trusted sources. It provides tips for identifying misinformation online, such as checking URLs, dates, and author credentials, and recognizing tactics like evoking strong emotions or pushing conspiracy theories. Two main approaches to fighting misinformation are discussed: prebunking and debunking. Prebunking involves warning individuals about potential misinformation before they encounter it, while debunking aims to correct false information after it has been consumed. The guide offers practical examples for both methods. Additionally, the document highlights the role of health workers in supporting peers and patients to trust immunization. It suggests being kind, nonjudgmental, and transparent when addressing concerns, and using motivational interviewing techniques to understand and respond to patients' doubts. Overall, the guide emphasizes the critical role of health workers in maintaining trust in vaccines and provides comprehensive strategies to identify, address, and prevent the spread of vaccine misinformation in clinical and community settings. The guide is a valuable resource for health workers to enhance their ability to combat vaccine misinformation, support informed decision-making, and promote trust in vaccines within their communities, and it addresses a pressing issue with practical solutions, supports trusted health workers, and ultimately aims to protect public health by promoting accurate information and trust in vaccines.
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The document "Combating False Information on Vaccines: A Guide for EPI Managers" is designed to help Expanded Program on Immunization (EPI) managers address vaccine misinformation. It begins by defining misinformation and explaining why it spreads rapidly, often due to its emotional appeal and simpl...istic explanations. The guide identifies common sources of vaccine misinformation, including influential individuals who profit from spreading false information. The document outlines strategies for combating misinformation, emphasizing the importance of EPI managers as trusted sources. It provides tips for identifying misinformation online, such as checking URLs, dates, and author credentials, and recognizing tactics like evoking strong emotions or pushing conspiracy theories. Two main approaches to fighting misinformation are discussed: prebunking and debunking. Prebunking involves warning individuals about potential misinformation before they encounter it, while debunking aims to correct false information after it has been consumed. The guide offers practical examples for both methods. Additionally, the document highlights the role of EPI managers in supporting health workers to trust immunization. It suggests being kind, nonjudgmental, and transparent when addressing concerns, and using motivational interviewing techniques to understand and respond to health workers' doubts. The guide also emphasizes the importance of creating a supportive environment for health workers, promoting pro-vaccine norms, and providing continuing education on vaccines. Overall, the guide aims to help EPI managers maintain trust in vaccines and provides comprehensive strategies to identify, address, and prevent the spread of vaccine misinformation in clinical and community settings. This document is necessary to equip EPI managers with the knowledge and tools to combat vaccine misinformation, support their teams, and promote trust in vaccines, ultimately protecting public health.
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Access to safe, effective and quality-assured health products and technologies is crucial for achieving universal health coverage and primary health care goals. The continued growth of the aging population; increasing burden of noncommunicable diseases; growing burden of mental health issues; climat...e change; shifting patterns of vector borne diseases, fungal disease and waterborne diseases; antimicrobial resistance; and new infectious hazards create an ongoing need for equitable access to safe, effective and quality-assured health products and technologies, and renewed investments in research and development for innovative health products and technologies.
The coronavirus pandemic exposed the inequalities in access to health products, highlighting the need for longer-term strategies to strengthen access to health products and technologies outside of and in emergency situations. While technological and scientific advances present an opportunity to increase access to health products and technologies, the risk of increasing inequality due to higher prices for new health products and technologies; the persisting problem of substandard and falsified medical products; a lack of skilled workforce in many low- and middle-income countries; and a lack of data for decisionmaking and for measuring progress present significant challenges.
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This guide aims to provide an overview of successful practice from the field for the disaster risk reduction/management practitioner interested in EWS. It presents guiding principles that will build a strong foundation for the design or strengthening of EWS at any level. It is not an operational, bu...t a strategic, guide that insists on asking the right questions and exploring all perspectives prior even to deciding whether or not early warning is the appropriate tool for a given context.
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The 2024 edition reviews more than 50 health-related indicators from the Sustainable Development Goals and WHO’s Thirteenth General Programme of Work. It also highlights the findings from the Global health estimates 2021, notably the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on life expectancy and healthy l...ife expectancy.
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Growing emergencies and displacements across the world demand increasingly complex interventions and responses. The World Health Organization (WHO) has developed Malaria control in emergencies: a field manual to provide technical guidance to help partners respond effectively to malaria in emergency ...situations. This field manual supersedes the 2013 WHO handbook.
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Despite being a preventable and curable infectious disease, tuberculosis (TB) has continued to elude global controll efforts. In 2023, 8.2 milion people with TB were diagnosed and notified to the WHO, the hightest number ever reported since WHO began tracking.
This document on logistics management information systems (LMIS) was developed to address the increasing need for harmonization and standardization of core indicators for managing medicines and health products for neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) at country level (i.e. for last-mile logistics). It... thereby responds to requests from Members States, pharmaceutical groups, financial donors and implementing partners for guidance from the World Health Organization (WHO) for a transparent, standardized reporting mechanism and key indicators for in-country logistics. More importantly, this document will also guide the last-mile logistics process and is relevant for the health workforce working at different levels of national health information systems. It can be adapted and used for any health products depending on the needs of the country or health programmes.
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Noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) (e.g., cardiovascular diseases, cancers, diabetes, and chronic respiratory diseases) and mental health conditions (e.g., Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias, depression, anxiety, autism spectrum disorders) are the world’s leading cause of preventable illness..., disability, and death. This report examines the dangers posed by current and rising rates of noncommunicable diseases and mental health conditions (NMHs) in South America, beyond their health risks, by demonstrating their considerable negative impact on economic growth. An analytical model was developed that projects the macroeconomic effects of NMHs over the period 2020–2050 in ten South American countries: Argentina, Bolivia (Plurinational State of), Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay, and Venezuela. The results showed that the macroeconomic impact of NMHs in South America indicates significant economic shortfalls resulting from NMHs. Overall, the total GDP loss due to NMHs in South America amounts to USD 7.3 trillion (2022 international USD) over the period 2020–2050
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The MEDBOX Annual Report provides an overview of the most important projects of the past year
In line with the Defeating meningitis by 2030: a global road map, the WHO guidelines on meningitis diagnosis, treatment and care Executive Summary provides a summary of the evidence-based recommendations for the clinical management of children and adults with community-acquired meningitis, including... acute and long-term care. Meningitis poses a significant public health threat, despite successful efforts to control the disease globally. The burden of morbidity and mortality from meningitis remains high, particularly in low- and middle-income countries and in settings experiencing large-scale, disruptive epidemics.
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The 2022 report reviews the global malaria diagnostics market and technological landscape to support Unitaid’s 2023–2027 strategy for quality malaria case management. The report highlights the stalled progress of malaria control efforts, the gaps in access to diagnostics and the public health im...plications of P. falciparum HRP2/3 gene deletions, which compromise the accuracy of the widely used HRP2-detecting rapid diagnostic tests (RDTs). The report analyses the malaria RDT market, noting supplier diversification, price trends and production shifts resulting from the pandemic. It also addresses the emerging point-of-care G6PD testing market, which is required to ensure the safe radical cure of P. vivax infections. It surveys technological innovation, including digital microscopy, hemozoin tests, nucleic acid detection and biosensors, while emphasising that RDTs and microscopy will remain the mainstay of case management in the near term. The report identifies market shortcomings, access barriers and opportunities to improve malaria case management and diagnostic coverage.
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This guidance synthesizes current evidence on dengue laboratory testing and diagnostics and provides practical recommendations for laboratories, clinicians, public health officials, and programme managers involved in dengue diagnosis, surveillance, and control, in the context of the global emergency.... It includes a diagnostic algorithm for suspected cases, outlining appropriate testing methods based on days post symptom onset.
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Non-Communicable Diseases (NCDs) have emerged as conditions of great public health concern in Kenya accounting for 39% of deaths annually. The Ministry of Health through the Department of Non-Communicable Diseases has adopted the vision of achieving a nation free from preventable burden of NCDs. Fur...ther, the mission of this strategy is to halt and reverse the rising burden of NCDs through effective multisectoral collaboration and partnerships by ensuring Kenyans receive the highest attainable standard of NCD continuum of care that is accessible, affordable, quality, equitable and sustainable thus alleviating suffering, disease and death for their well-being and socio-economic development.
The scope of NCDs covered by this strategy include; cardiovascular diseases, cancer, diabetes, chronic respiratory diseases, mental health conditions, violence and injuries, hemoglobinopathies, haemophilia and other bleeding disorders, auto immune diseases, chronic renal diseases, epilepsy and other neurological disorders, chronic skin conditions and oral diseases and conditions. It equally addresses seven risk factors; tobacco use, harmful use of alcohol, unhealthy diets and toxins, physical inactivity, indoor air pollution, environmental pollutants and toxins and stress.
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Health in All Policies (HiAP) promotes health and equity. It is based on the recognition that our greatest health challenges for example, non-communicable diseases, health inequities and inequalities, climate change, and spiraling health care costs are highly complex and often linked through the soc...ial determinants of health (SDH). In this context, promoting healthy communities, and in particular health equity across different population groups, requires that we address the social determinants of health, such as public transportation, education access, access to healthy food, economic opportunities, and more. While many public policies work to achieve this, conflicts of interest may arise. Alternatively, unintended impacts of policies are not measured and addressed. This requires innovative solutions, and structures that build channels for dialogue and decision-making that work across traditional government policy siloes. Hence, HiAP could be adopted to ensure commitment from the highest decision makers within government to address the social determinants of health.
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These guidelines have been developed in simple, user-friendly language and they explain the procedures for patients’ access to and the safe management of Schedule I and II drugs that are necessary for the treatment and relief of moderate to severe pain. They provide both procedures for acquisition... and information on records or documents that are necessary to ensure that these medicines are made available and accessible to patients across the entire health care delivery system (i.e. from tertiary institutions to primary level) and ensuring prevention of illicit non-medical use.
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This resulting toolkit is a practical guide intended to assist users to become advocates for palliative care in a practical and effective
way. It is not necessarily a resource to read from cover to cover; rather, it can also be used selectively to each reader’s needs to engage audiences and... ensure that there is a real understanding of the need for palliative care. It should also be read in conjunction with the supplementary resources listed at the end of each of the toolkit’s sections.
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This document outlines the plan for a continental cholera prevention and control with the implementation framework for the Cholera IMST, detailing its governance structure, strategic priorities, and operational modalities
Public health challenges over the past decade have highlighted the importance of approaching health through a holistic lens of human, animal, and environmental sectors, recognizing the need for a collaborative response against shared threats. Zoonotic diseases, transmitted between humans and animals... through their shared environment, are at the forefront of the threats requiring collaborations that span human health, natural ecosystems, and food systems.
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Drawing on the World Health Organization’s package of NCD best buys, the report demonstrates how these evidence-based measures can help countries reduce premature deaths, strengthen health systems, and advance progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals. It provides policymakers, donors, ad...vocates, and partners with a clear economic and social rationale for scaling up implementation of proven solutions. By framing NCD prevention and control as both a health and development priority, the report offers a roadmap for action that delivers benefits across populations, economies, and generations. The evidence is clear: investing in WHO’s best buys is not only possible—it is imperative. The time to act is now.
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