The second edition of the “A Region on the Move” report provides an overview of population movement trends in West and Central
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Africa in 2021. It aims to provide a comprehensive overview of mobility in the region and showcase the versatility, multidimensionality and nuances of regional mobility in West and Central Africa.
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An Independent Report
of the West Africa Commission on Drugs
The Transformation Agenda (TA) ushered in an ambitious reform process intended to transform the World Health Organization (WHO) into an organization that is proactive, results-driven, accountable and which meets stakeholder expectations, towards tra
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nsforming and improving public health services in the African Region. It aimed to achieve a WHO that is pro-results, which optimally and creatively targets technical work as well as make operations more responsive, with greater effectiveness in both communications and partnerships. The Africa Region has been the epicentre of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) epidemic and it’s one of the leading causes of disease and death on the continent. The WHO, with partners, has worked tirelessly for many years to control the threat and reduce the negative impact of the disease. Since the early 2000s, significant progress has been made in the global fight against the scourge of HIV. However, the WCA subregion was falling concerningly behind ESA on several key indicators of progress. In 2016, the WHO joined UNAIDS, UNICEF and other partners in a call for a strong and urgent response to support WCA countries to develop catch-up plans to triple and fast-track ART coverage, to enable the region to catch up with ESA by the end of 2020. Implementation of a widespread test-and-treat strategy, coupled with the scale-up of differentiated service delivery (DSD) and mobilization of requisite funding, accelerated WCA’s progress towards this goal. The HIV treatment catch-up and fast-track plan has achieved its target of seeing the West and Central African region (WCA) catch up with the Eastern and Southern African region’s (ESA) antiretroviral coverage rate of 78% in 2021, albeit later than the 2020 target time frame. A 33% improvement was achieved in WCA, against 21% in ESA, between 2015–2020. WCA achieved a significant 42% increase, compared to ESA’s 23%, between 2015 and 2021, to see WCA draw level with ESA at 78%. In the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) alone, progress of up to 47% was observed between 2015 and 2020, for example. In addition, 1.6 million more People Living with HIV (PLHIV) were enrolled on antiretroviral treatment (ART) between 2015 and 2020.
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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 de
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aths in Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone. The Ebola virus has been known since 1976, when two separate outbreaks were identified in the Democratic Republic 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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Updated version June 2015
Learning from the Use of Data, Information, and Digital Technologies in the West Africa Ebola Outbreak Response
The report presents successful case studies from around the world, including the implementation of minimum protection standards for refugee children in Germany, cross border child protection systems in West
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Africa, and finding alternatives to the detention of migrant children in Zambia. Other countries featured in the report include Afghanistan, Italy, Jordan, Lebanon, South Sudan, Vietnam, Uganda and the U.S. Each of the initiatives can be replicated in different contexts and inform child-focused actions and policy change at national, regional and global levels to be agreed in the framework of the Compact.
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This document was prepared by UNICEF Regional Office for West and Central Africa, under the lead
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ership of Christophe Valingot and the review of Joachim Peeters (WASH Specialist) and Arnaud Laillou (Nutrition Specialist), on behalf of the WASH Regional Group and the Nutrition Regional Group.
This WASH - Nutrition strategic guidance note for West and Central Africa builds on the precedent WASH-in-NUT strategy elaborated in 2012 and is the regional outcome of a multiyear collaborative work conducted at country level between 2018 and 2022, in Mali, Niger, Nigeria Chad, Burkina Faso. This work is based on a strong multi-partner collaboration, involving national technical directorates of the water and sanitation sector as well as technical directorates of Health and Nutrition, civil society organizations, national and international NGOs as well as United Nations agencies.
This document can serve as a technical and strategic guide for any partner wishing to strengthen the intersectorality of WASH-Nutrition programmes. It presents the regional WASH & Nutrition context, a brief review of the latest scientific evidence, and proposes an integrated WASH-Nutrition programming framework adapted to the regional context of West and Central Africa. Beyond the implementation of programmes, this document also calls for the explicit and concrete inclusion of WASH-Nutrition integration into national policy documents.
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Mpox continues to affect people around the world. A new framework released today by WHO will guide health authorities, communities and other stakeholders in preventing and controlling mpox outbreaks
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, eliminating human-to-human transmission of the disease, and reducing spillover of the virus from animals to humans.
Mpox is a viral illness caused by the monkeypox virus (MPXV). It can cause a painful rash, enlarged lymph nodes and fever. Most people fully recover, but some get very sick. The virus transmits from person to person through close, including sexual, contact. It also has animal reservoirs in east, central and west Africa, where spillovers from animals to humans can occasionally occur, sparking further outbreaks.
There are two different clades of the virus: clade I and clade II. Clade I outbreaks are deadlier than clade II outbreaks.
A major emergence of mpox linked to clade II began in 2017, and since 2022, has spread to all regions of the world. Between July 2022 and May 2023, the outbreak was declared a Public Health Emergency of International Concern. While that outbreak has largely subsided, cases and deaths continue to be reported today, illustrating that low-level transmission continues around the world.
Currently, there is also a major outbreak of clade I virus in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), where cases have been on the rise for decades. Since the beginning of the year, over 6500 cases and 345 deaths have been reported in the DRC. Almost half of these are among children under the age of 15 years.
The Strategic framework for enhancing prevention and control of mpox (2024–2027) provides a roadmap for health authorities, communities, and stakeholders worldwide to control mpox outbreaks in every context, advance mpox research and access to countermeasures, and to minimize zoonotic transmission.
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Ebola disease and Marburg disease outbreaks continue to occur in Africa, with increased frequency. In addition to resulting in high mortality and m
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orbidity, the outbreaks generate fear and mistrust about the response activities within the communities affected.
Infection prevention and control (IPC) is a key pillar in the outbreak response; adherence to IPC practices can prevent and control transmission of infections to health and care workers, patients and their family members.
During the 2014-2016 West African Ebola disease outbreak, there was an urgent need for rapid IPC guidance to help support ministries of health, health-care providers and non-governmental organizations (NGOs). In response, WHO produced several documents related to the outbreak based on expert opinion, including IPC-specific documents and documents on clinical management that also referenced key IPC principles and practices. Since that time, many practices in the field have become institutionalized.
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A WHO Guideline for Emergency Risk Communication (ERC) policy and practice.
Recent public health emergencies, such as the Ebola virus disease outbreak in West
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Africa (2014–2015), the emergence of the Zika virus syndrome in 2015–2016 and multi-country yellow fever outbreaks in Africa in 2016, have highlighted major challenges and gaps in how risk is communicated during epidemics and other health emergencies. The challenges include the rapid transformation in communications technology, including the near-universal penetration of mobile telephones, the widespread use and increasingly powerful influence of digital media which has had an impact on ‘traditional’ media (newspapers, radio and television), and major changes in how people access and trust health information. Important gaps include considerations of context – the social, economic, political and cultural factors influencing people’s perception of risk and their risk-reduction behaviours.
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The project will support preventive actions, traditional medicine and the coordination and
implementation capacities of the national framework for HIV/AIDS control.
This toolkit for integrated vector management (IVM) is designed to help national and regional programme managers coordinate across sectors to design and run large IVM programmes.
The toolkit pr
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ovides the technical detail required to plan, implement, monitor and evaluate an IVM approach. IVM can be used when the aim is to control or eliminate vector-borne diseases and can also contribute to insecticide resistance management. This toolkit provides information on where vector-borne diseases are endemic and what interventions should be used, presenting case studies on IVM as well as relevant guidance documents for reference.
The diseases that are the focus of this toolkit are malaria, lymphatic filariasis, dengue, leishmaniasis, onchocerciasis, human African trypanosomiasis and schistosomiasis. It also includes information on other viral diseases (Rift Valley fever, West Nile fever, Chikungunya, yellow fever) and trachoma. If other vector-borne diseases appear in a country or area, vector control with an IVM approach should be adopted, as per national priorities.
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Annual report on global preparednessfor health emergencies
The next pandemic is not a question of if, but when—and the world is woefully unprepared, according to the first annual report from the Global Preparedness Monitoring Board. The WHO
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and the World Bank convened the independent group after the 2014-2015 Ebola outbreak in West Africa, Global News reports. Within 36 hours, a contagion like the 1918 flu could sweep the globe and take 50 to 80 million lives while wreaking havoc on the global economy, the report warns. And that’s just one possibility.
What would it take to get prepared? An investment of $1-$2 per person per year could create “acceptable” level of preparedness.
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How to respond to Covid19 pandemic in West and Central Africa
Refugees and migrants face unacceptable and extreme forms of violence on mixed migration routes from East and
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West Africa to and through North Africa. This report provides clear and strong findings based on almost 16,000 interviews with refugees and migrants all along the migration routes. It provides clear data on the extent to which refugees and migrants face various violations of their rights, and identifies who are generally reported to be responsible and should thus be held accountable.
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doi: 10.9745/GHSP-D-16-00226; Glob Health Sci Pract December 23, 2016 vol. 4 no. 4 p. 626-646
This is a pre-deployment training, tailored specially to the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, offered to WHO personnel, consultants, and key partners
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. The material covered in modules 1-4 is applicable and useful to frontline response workers, national and international. Only Module 5, which focuses on operational aspects - the code of conduct for international civil servants and human resources arrangements for WHO deployees, are specifically geared to all internationally recruited personnel and to WHO deployees respectively
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Infectious Diseases of Poverty 2014, 3:42
http://www.idpjournal.com/content/3/1/42