The study sought to understand the factors that facilitate women to adhere to treatment and return to health facilities for routine care from their own perspective. The researchers focused on Malawi
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, Uganda and Zambia, early adopters of the global guidance to provide lifelong treatment for pregnant women living with HIV (Option B+) and spoke to women living with HIV, healthcare workers and programme managers to discover which factors and practices show promise in supporting women to initiate and remain in care.
This study found that women living with HIV who access these services to prevent vertical transmission have a strong sense and understanding of what factors support their retention and how health facilities, the wider community and their friends and relations can best support them. This report shares their words to describe how it feels to walk in their shoes on the path of life long treatment.
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English Analysis on Brazil about Health, Protection and Human Rights and Epidemic; published on 26 May 2021 by SSHAP
Childhood cancer is curable for the vast majority of children when essential diagnostic, therapeutic and supportive care services are accessible. However, profound inequalities in outcomes exist within and
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between countries with as few as 20% or 30% of children living in low- and middle-income countries surviving.
The Global Initiative for Childhood Cancer Overview document presents the CureAll approach to support governments, partners and communities achieve the best possible cancer care for all children. This approach, summarized as four pillars of action supported by three enablers, will improve the care for children with cancer around the world.
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This special issue on Newborn Health in Global Health Action is being launched to share the experience of how to scale up a cost-effective package
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of newborn care that involves families, community health workers and health facilities. The results of this community randomized trial, the Uganda Newborn Study (UNEST), show that home visits in pregnancy and soon after delivery resulted in improved breastfeeding practices, skin-to-skin care immediately after birth, delaying a baby’s first bath, and hygienic care of the baby’s umbilical cord among the poorest households with lowest access to care.
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This guideline provides global, evidence-informed recommendations on a number of specific issues related to the management of severe acute malnutrition in infants and children, including in the cont
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ext of HIV.
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The African Regional Convening of the Global Initiative to Support Parents (GISP) stimulated the interest or engagement of almost 1500 individuals from 742 unique organizations in the fields of health
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, education, social welfare, women’s affairs, early childhood, water and sanitation, mental health, violence prevention, innovative finance, climate, and many others. The convening united representatives across governments, civil society organizations, programme implementers, philanthropies, multilateral organizations, bilateral funders, private companies, universities, schools and day care centres, and hospitals around the common cause of supporting parents and caregivers.
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Rabies is entirely preventable, and vaccines, medicines, tools and technologies have long
been available to prevent people from dying of dog-mediated rabies. Nevertheless, rabies still
kills about
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60 000 people a year, of whom over 40% are children under 15, mainly in rural areas
of economically disadvantaged countries in Africa and Asia. Of all human cases, up to 99% are
acquired from the bite of an infected dog.
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The COVID-19 pandemic has raised profound ethical challenges on an unprecedented global scale. These challenges include how to allocate scarce resources (especially vaccines and therapeutics), both
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within and between countries, whether and when to mandate vaccines and/or masks, whether and how to conduct public health surveillance, whether to issue vaccine passports, and how to address stark international and intranational inequities. In addition, there have been ethical concerns about the conduct of COVID-19 research, such as the appropriateness of challenge studies.
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The COVID-19 Strategic Preparedness and Response Plan (SPRP) 2021 Monitoring and Evaluation Framework tracks global progress against the COVID-19 S
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PRP 2021 for the ten pillars of the public health response. The operational intelligence complements the epidemiologic information used to drive a global dynamic system of support and response. Monitoring SPRP 2021 implementation will support countries, partners and WHO in strategic thinking, operational tracking and course correction based on evidence and transparency to strengthen the response to COVID-19.
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These WHO guidelines which were updated in 2018, are valid for any country and suitable to local adaptations, and take account of the strength of available scientific evidence, the cost
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and resource implications, and patient values and preferences.
The 2018 edition of the guidelines includes the revision of the recommendation regarding the use of 80% fraction of inspired oxygen (high FiO2) in surgical patients under general anaesthesia with tracheal intubation and the update of the section on implementation. Between 2017 and 2018, WHO re-assessed the evidence on the use of high FiO2 by updating the systematic review related to the effectiveness of this intervention to reduce SSI and commissioning an independent systematic review on adverse events potentially associated with it. Based on the updated evidence, the GDG decided to revise the strength of the recommendation from strong to conditional.
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The goal of the strategy is to prevent seasonal influenza, control the spread of influenza from animals to humans, and prepare for the next influenza pandemic.
The new strategy is the most comprehensive a
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nd far-reaching that WHO has ever developed for influenza. It outlines a path to protect populations every year and helps prepare for a pandemic through strengthening routine programmes.
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Antibiotics and other antimicrobial agents are invaluable life savers, particularly in resource-limited countries where infectious diseases are abundant. Both uncomplicated and severe in
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fections are potentially curable as long as the aetiological agents are susceptible to the antimicrobial drugs. The rapid rate with which antimicrobial agents are becoming ineffective due to resistance acquired as a result of unchecked overuse and misuse threatens to undo the benefit of controlling infections. The evidence for resistant microorganisms, many times to more than a single antimicrobial agent, has been observed globally. In Tanzania, there is evidence in the form of few scattered studies conducted in different parts of the country in a multitude of settings including health care facilities, the community, domesticated animals and wild animals
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This technical guidance outlines current evidence, knowledge and best practice relating to incidences of violence and injuries among refugees
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and migrants in the WHO European Region. It highlights key principles, summarizes priority actions and challenges, maps existing international commitments and frameworks and provides practical policy considerations for preventing and responding to such challenges. Specific areas for intervention include ensuring safe passage for migration; addressing causes of violence and injuries in transit and destination countries, including changing norms and values; identifying victims and providing care and protection; investigating and prosecuting perpetrators; and strengthening the knowledge base. While the main intended audience of this technical guidance series are policy-makers across sectors at local, national and regional levels, the contents of this publication will also be of value for health-care practitioners and law enforcement and border protection officials.
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This document builds on the Background document prepared for the September 4-5, 2014 Consultation. It includes proposed elements to consider during the development of a framework to assist decision-making at global
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and national level.
The aim of the document is to assist Member States and relevant partners in their discussions to identify the best approaches to ensure the accelerated evaluation and use of available or near-term therapies and vaccines for the treatment and prevention of EVD. The document calls for a coordinated effort by the international community to remove unnecessary obstacles towards this goal.
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WHO Technical Report Series, No. 961, 2011, Annex 8 - These guidelines are intended to provide a description of ways in which pharmacists can improve access to health care, health promotion
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and the use of medicines on behalf of the patients they serve. The role of FIP is to provide leadership for national pharmacy professional organizations, which in turn provide the impetus for setting national standards. The vital element is the commitment of the pharmacy profession worldwide to promoting excellence in practice for the benefi t of those served. The public and other professions will judge the pharmacy profession on how its members translate that commitment into practice in all settings, especially community and hospital pharmacy settings.
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The goal of the draft global action plan is to ensure, for as long as possible, continuity of successful treatment and prevention of infectious diseases with effective
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and safe medicines that are quality-assured, used in a responsible way, and accessible to all who need them.
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The Global vector control response 2017–2030 (GVCR) provides a new strategy to strengthen vector control worldwide through increased capacity, improved surveillance, better coordination and integr
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ated action across sectors and diseases.
In May 2017, the World Health Assembly adopted resolution WHA 70.16, which calls on Member States to develop or adapt national vector control strategies and operational plans to align with this strategy.
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WHO, in partnership with the International Society for Prosthetics and Orthotics (ISPO) and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), has published
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global standards for prosthetics and orthotics. Its aim is to ensure that prosthetics and orthotics services are people-centred and responsive to every individual’s personal and environmental needs. The standards advocate for the integration of prosthetics and orthotics services into health services, under universal health coverage. Implementation of these standards will support countries to fulfil their obligations under the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and towards the Sustainable Development Goals, in particular Goal 3: Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages.
The standards provide guidance on the development of national policies, plans and programmes for prosthetics and orthotics services of the highest standard. The standards are divided into two documents: the standards and an implementation manual. Both documents cover four areas of the health system:
policy (governance, financing and information);
products (prostheses and orthoses);
personnel (workforce);
and provision of services.
The Standards have been developed through consultation with experts from around the globe via a steering group, development group and external review group.
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The WHO continuously reviews available data on SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern. For this version, the global epidemiological
situation of the COVID-19 pandemic as of 21 January 2022 – at a time when the Omicron VOC had been identified in 171
coun
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tries across all six WHO Regions and was rapidly replacing Delta worldwide – was considered Omicron has a substantial growth advantage, higher secondary attack rates and a higher observed reproduction number than Delta.
There is now significant evidence that immune evasion contributes to the rapid spread of Omicron. Other factors may be a shorter
serial interval (by about 0.8 to 1.2 days compared to Delta) and potential increased intrinsic transmission fitness . There is
growing evidence that with Omicron, there is lower vaccine effectiveness (VE) against infection and symptomatic disease soon after vaccination compared to Delta. There is also evidence of accelerated waning of VE over time of the primary series against infection and symptomatic disease for the studied vaccines. Further studies are required to better understand the drivers of transmission and declining incidence in various settings. These factors include the intrinsic transmission fitness properties of the virus, degree of immune evasion, vaccination coverage and level of vaccine-derived and post-infection immunity, levels of social mixing and degree of application of public health and social measures (PHSM).
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The goal of this Global Action Plan is to articulate synergistic actions that will be required to prevent HIVDR from undermining efforts to achieve global targets on
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health and HIV, and to provide the most effective treatment to all people living with HIV including adults, key populations, pregnant and breastfeeding women, children and adolescents. The Global Action Plan has five strategic objectives: 1) prevention and response; 2) monitoring and surveillance; 3) research and innovation; 4) laboratory capacity; and 5) governance and enabling mechanisms.
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