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
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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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This report summarizes the latest scientific knowledge on the links between exposure to air pollution and adverse health effects in children. It is intended to inform and motivate individual
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and collective action by health care professionals to prevent damage to children’s health from exposure to air pollution. Air pollution is a major environmental health threat. Exposure to fine particles in both the ambient environment and in the household causes about seven million premature deaths each year. Ambient air pollution (AAP) alone imposes enormous costs on the global economy, amounting to more than US$ 5 trillion in total welfare losses in 2013.
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Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is an important public health concern shared by developed and developing countries. In developing countries the burden of infectious diseases is greater and exacerbate
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d by limited access to, and availability and affordability of, antimicrobials required to treat infections caused by AMR organisms. With drugs not listed on the essential drugs list (EDL), problems of increased morbidity, costs of extended hospitalisation and mortality are extremely serious. The problem of susceptibility to and spread of infections caused by multidrug-resistant (MDR) infectious agents is fuelled by factors such as limited access to clean water and sanitation to ensure personal hygiene, malnutrition, and the HIV/TB epidemic.
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The guidelines acknowledge that overcrowding, unhygienic conditions and high inmate turn over contribute to the spread of infectious diseases within correctional facilities. The document states that voluntary HIV counselling
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and testing must be offered to all inmates when they enter facilities, during their incarceration at an inmate’s request and upon their release. All inmates must be screened for TB symptoms upon entry to facilities and at least bi-annually thereafter as well as upon release. Universal screening for anal, oral and genital STIs must be done at entry and upon self-presentation
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WHO today released its first roadmap to tackle postpartum haemorrhage (PPH) – defined as excessive bleeding after childbirth - which affects millions of women annually and is the world’s leading cause of maternal
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deaths.
Despite being preventable and treatable, PPH results in around 70 000 deaths every year. For those who survive, it can cause disabilities and psychological trauma that last for years.
“Severe bleeding in childbirth is one of the most common causes of maternal mortality, yet it is highly preventable and treatable,” said Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General. “This new roadmap charts a path forward to a world in which more women have a safe birth and a healthy future with their families.”
The Roadmap aims to help countries address stark differences in survival outcomes from PPH, which reflect major inequities in access to essential health services. Over 85% of deaths from PPH happen in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. Risk factors include anaemia, placental abnormalities, and other complications in pregnancy such as infections and pre-eclampsia.
Many risk factors can be managed if there is quality antenatal care, including access to ultrasound, alongside effective monitoring in the hours after birth. If bleeding starts, it also needs to be detected and treated extremely quickly. Too often, however, health facilities lack necessary healthcare workers or resources, including lifesaving commodities such as oxytocin, tranexamic acid or blood for transfusions.
“Addressing postpartum haemorrhage needs a multipronged approach focusing on both prevention and response - preventing risk factors and providing immediate access to treatments when needed - alongside broader efforts to strengthen women’s rights,” said Dr Pascale Allotey, WHO Director for Sexual and Reproductive Health and HRP, the UN’s special programme on research development and training in human reproduction. “Every woman, no matter where she lives, should have access to timely, high quality maternity care, with trained health workers, essential equipment and shelves stocked with appropriate and effective commodities – this is crucial for treating postpartum bleeding and reducing maternal deaths.”
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In the light of the transmissibility of coronaviruses, and the global experience with MERS-CoV (ongoing) and SARS in 2003 which were also caused by coronaviruses, South African authorities have comp
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iled this guideline document to support surveillance, case finding, diagnosis, management and public health responses to cases under investigation.
*Please note*
The interim guidelines are based on what is currently known about the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19). The National Department of Health (NDOH) and National Institute for Communicable Diseases will update these interim guidelines as needed and as additional information becomes available.
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Human African trypanosomiasis (HAT) has been an alarming global public health issue. The disease affects mainly poor and marginalized people in low-resource settings and is caused by two subspecies
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of haemoflagellate parasite, Trypanosoma brucei and transmitted by tsetse flies. Progress made in HAT control during the past decade has prompted increasing global dialogue on its elimination and eradication. The disease is targeted by the World Health Organization (WHO) for elimination as a public health problem by 2020 and to terminate its transmission globally by 2030, along-side other Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTD). Several methods have been used to control tsetse flies and the disease transmitted by them. Old and new tools to control the disease are available with constraints.
Currently, there are no vaccines available. Efforts towards intervention to control the disease over the past decade have seen considerable progress and remarkable success with incidence dropping progressively, reversing the upward trend of reported cases. This gives credence in a real progress in its elimination. This study reviews various control measures, progress and a highlight of control issues, vector and parasite barriers that may have been hindering progress towards its elimination.
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Noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) – chief among them, cardiovascular diseases (heart disease and stroke), cancer, diabetes and chronic respiratory diseases – along with mental health, cause nearly
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three quarters of deaths in the world. Their drivers are social, environmental, commercial and genetic, and their presence is global. Every year 17 million people under the age of 70 die of NCDs, and 86% of them live in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs).
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Noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) – chief among them, cardiovascular diseases (heart disease and stroke), cancer, diabetes and chronic respiratory diseases – along with mental health, cause nearly
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three quarters of deaths in the world. Their drivers are social, environmental, commercial and genetic, and their presence is global. Every year 17 million people under the age of 70 die of NCDs, and 86% of them live in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs).
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These Blended Learning Modules cover the full range of health promotion, disease prevention, basic management and essential treatment protocols to improve and protect the health of rural communities
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in Ethiopia. A strong focus is on enabling Ethiopia to meet the Millennium Development Goals to reduce maternal mortality by three-quarters and under-5 child mortality by two-thirds by the year 2015. The Modules cover antenatal care, labour and delivery, postnatal care, the integrated management of newborn and childhood illness, communicable diseases (including HIV/AIDS, malaria, TB, leprosy and other common infectious diseases), family planning, adolescent and youth reproductive health, nutrition and food safety, hygiene and environmental health, non-communicable diseases, health education and community mobilisation, and health planning and professional ethics.
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Guidelines for national programmes and other stakeholders
Annexes for webposting and CD-Rom distribution with the policy guidelines
Guidelines for national programmes and other stakeholders, for annexes see http://www.who.int/tb/publications/2012/tb_hiv_policy_9789241503006/en/
This strategic framework marries formerly separate mandates for HIV and TB management in to one, comprehensive collaboration. It provides a structure for how to: strengthen the health care system to
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respond effectively to both epidemics, reduce the burden of HIV/AIDS in TB patients, and establish a monitoring and evaluation system for the collaborative activities. Activities include: improving TB infection control in health care and other settings, enhancing TB/HIV diagnostic capacity, and harmonize data collection tools and local, national and international TB/HIV indicators.
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Advocacy report March 2011
303100 03/2011 E 1,000
A compendium of TB REACH case studies, lessons learned and a monitoring and evaluation framework.
Accessed November 2017.
Guidelines for social mobilization
TB and poverty; TB and children;
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TB and women; TB, migrants and refugees; TB and prisons
WHO/CDS/STB/2001.9
Original: English; Distribution: Limited
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The 7th edition of the Orange Guide provides practical guidance to health workers on the front line of TB control. It includes sections on HIV, MDR-TB and
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a review of the recommended treatment regimens
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This 2016-2020 public-private mix strategic plan (PPM SP) is a 4-year framework designed to guide the National TB Control Programme (NTP) and its partners to implement PPM in Bangladesh. It provides
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goals, strategies and interventions for expanding and scaling up current PPM models and outlines approaches to further enhance and strengthen PPM coordination and partnerships among NTP, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and private health providers
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Networking for Policy Change: TB/HIV Participant’s Guide
WHO/HTM/TB/2007.384b
“TB is too often a death sentence for people with AIDS. It do
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es not have to be this
way.”
-Nelson Mandela, International conference on HIV and AIDS, Bangkok, Thailand, July 2004.
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