Although Shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli (STEC) have been isolated from a variety of food production animals, they are most commonly associated with ruminants from which we derive meat and mi
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lk. Because of the widespread and diverse nature of ruminant-derived food production, coupled with the near ubiquity of STEC worldwide, there is no single definitive solution for controlling STEC that will work alone or in all situations. Instead, the introduction of multiple interventions applied in sequence, as a “multiple-hurdle scheme” at several points throughout the food chain (including processing, transport and handling) will be most effective.
This report summarizes the review and evaluation of interventions applied for the control of STEC in cattle, raw beef and raw milk and raw milk cheese manufactured from cows’ milk, and also evaluates available evidence for other small ruminants, swine and other animals. The information is presented from primary production, to the end of processing, providing the reader with information on the currently available interventions based on the latest scientific evidence.
This work was undertaken to support the development of guidelines for the control of STEC in beef, raw milk and cheese produced from raw milk by the Codex Committee on Food Hygiene (CCFH).
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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
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health, cause nearly 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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Executive summary On 27th and 28th April 2021, the division of Disease Control and Prevention in
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collaboration with Public Health England, organized a virtual consultative meeting as part of the consultations with Member States and partners for the development of the Africa CDC five years strategic plan for the prevention and control of Non-communicable Diseases … Report: Expert and stakeholder virtual consultation meeting to develop the Africa CDC Non-Communicable Diseases and Mental Health Strategy
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This version of Field Trials of Health Interventions includes seven new chapters on conducting systematic literature reviews, trial
governance, pr
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eliminary studies and pilot testing, budgeting and accounting, intervention costing and economic analysis, and Phase IV studies. Before new interventions are released into disease control programmes, it is essential that they are carefully evaluated in ‘field trials’. These may be complex and expensive undertakings, requiring the follow-up of hundreds, or thousands, of individuals, often for long periods. This manual was designed to provide guidance on the practical issues in great detail
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Environmental Health in Emergencies and Disasters
Chapter 10
With hundreds of illustrations and clear instructions, A Community Guide to Environmental Health
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helps health promoters, development workers, environmental activists, and community leaders take charge of their environmental health in villages and cities alike. Also available in Arabic, Spanish, Chinese, Portuguese, Turkish, Dari, Malayan, Mongolian and Russian.
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These guidelines are designed for settings with limited resources to provide inexpensive and effective control strategies for prevention of TB tran
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smission in health care workers (HCW).
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Current Environmental Health Reports volume 7, pages 363–370 (2020)
Climate change has direct impacts on human health, but those impacts vary wi
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dely by location. Local health impacts depend on a large number of factors including specific regional climate impacts, demographics and human vulnerabilities, and existing local adaptation capacity. There is a need to incorporate local data and concerns into climate adaptation plans and evaluate different approaches.
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The emergence and transmission of zoonotic diseases are driven by complex interactions
between health,
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environmental, and socio-political systems. Human movement is considered
a significant and increasing factor in these processes, yet forced migration remains an
understudied area of zoonotic research–due in part to the complexity of conducting interdisciplinary
research in these settings.
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Inequality of access to palliative care and symptom relief is one of the greatest disparities in global
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health care (1). Currently, there is avoidable suffering on a massive scale due to lack of access to palliative care and symptom relief in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) (1). Yet basic palliative care that can prevent or relieve most suffering due to serious or life-threatening health conditions can be taught easily to generalist clinicians, can be provided in the community and requires only simple, inexpensive medicines and equipment. For these reasons, the World Health Assembly (WHA) resolved that palliative care is "an ethical responsibility of health systems"(2). Further, most patients who need palliative care are at home and prefer to remain there. Thus, it is imperative that palliative care be provided in the community as part of primary care. This document was written to assist ministries of health and health care planners, implementers and managers to integrate palliative care and symptom control into primary health care (PHC).
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This document highlights the key aspects of safe health-care waste management in order to guide policy-makers, practitioners and facility managers
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to improve such services in health-care facilities. It is based on the comprehensive WHO handbook Safe management of wastes from health-care activities (WHO, 2014), and also takes into consideration relevant World Health Assembly resolutions, other UN documents and emerging global and national developments on water, sanitation and hygiene and infection prevention and control.
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2nd edition. This toolkit provides step-by-step guidance to NTD programme managers and partners on how to engage and work collaboratively with the WASH community to improve delivery
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of water, sanitation and hygiene services to underserved population affected by many neglected tropical diseases. The toolkit draws on tools and practices used in the delivery of coordinated and integrated programmes for control, elimination and eradication of NTDs. This second edition include revisions and new tools based on experiences of using the toolkit in more than 20 countries.
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Small island developing states (SIDS) are a set of islands and coastal states that share similar sustainable development challenges, as a result of
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their size, geography and vulnerability to climate change. Thirty-nine WHO member states in four regions – the African Region, the Region of the Americas, the South-East Asian Region, and the Western Pacific region – are classified as SIDS. Whilst the individual countries differ in many respects, collectively they face unique social, economic and environmental challenges.
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This 400 page guide, created by PHI’s Center for Climate Change and Health and the American Public He
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alth Association (APHA), with support from the California Department of Public Health helps local health departments prepare for and mitigate climate change effects—from drought and heat to flooding and food security—with concrete, implementable suggestions.
The guide: Provides a basic summary of climate change and climate impacts on health; Prioritizes health equity, explains the disproportionate impacts of climate change on vulnerable communities, and targets solutions first to the communities where they are most needed, including low-income, elderly and people of color communities; Connects what we know about climate impacts and climate solutions with the work of local health departments; and Offers specific examples of how local health departments can address and ameliorate the impacts of climate change in every area of public health practice.
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In 2015, 26% of the deaths of 5.9 million children who died before reaching their fifth birthday could have been prevented
through addressing environment
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al risks – a shocking missed opportunity. The prenatal and early childhood period represents
a window of particular vulnerability, where environmental hazards can lead to premature birth and other complications,
and increase lifelong disease risk including for respiratory disorders, cardiovascular disease and cancers. The environment
thus represents a major factor in children’s health, as well as a major opportunity for improvement, with effects seen in every
region of the world.
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Lessons from three African Countries.
Achieving Health for All, and in particular universal health coverage (UHC), will not happen without fully f
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unctioning basic water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) services in all health care facilities. Such services are needed to provide quality care, ensure adherence to infection prevention and control (IPC) norms and standards and guarantee that facilities are able to provide environments that respect the dignity and human rights of all care seekers, especially mothers, newborns and children. WHO undertook a series of national situational analyses in three countries (Ghana, Ethiopia and Rwanda) to understand current barriers to change, accountability structures and measures to strengthen WASH in health care facilities and more broadly, the quality of health service delivery.
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This treatment guideline is intended to assist clinicians in the Behavioral Health department in treatment planning and service delivery for patien
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ts with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). It may also assist clinicians treating patients who have some of the signs and symptoms of PTSD but who do not meet the full criteria of PTSD. The treatment guideline is not intended to cover every aspect of clinical practice, but to focus specifically on the treatment models and modalities that clinicians in our outpatient treatment setting could provide. These guidelines were developed through a process of literature review and discussion amongst clinicians in the Behavioral Health department and represent a consensus recommendation for service provision for this disorder. The guideline is intended to inform both clinical and administrative practices with the explicit goals of outlining treatment that is: effective, efficient, culturally relevant and acceptable to clinicians, program managers, and patients.
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Emerg Infect Dis. 2020 Jul [date cited]. https://doi.org/10.3201/eid2607.200915
Infection control instructions call for use of alcohol-based hand rub solutions to inactivate severe acute respirator
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y syndrome coronavirus 2. We determined the virucidal activity of World Health Organization–recommended hand rub formulations, at full strength and multiple dilutions, and of the active ingredients. All disinfectants demonstrated efficient virus inactivation.
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Nosocomial or health-facility-acquired infections are a serious issue, representing one of the most significant causes of morbidity
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and mortality in healthcare systems and consuming many scarce resources, especially in developing countries. Although much has been done, particularly in the hospital setting, to reduce the risk of these infections, the problem persists and demands innovative and cost-efficient solutions.
Although the care provided in most primary health care facilities is predominantly ambulatory with few or no inpatient beds, infection prevention is still important to minimize or eliminate the risks of facility-acquired infections and assure quality patient care.
Health facilities and hospitals should have written infection control procedures and guidelines in place and should also be monitoring that these procedures are adhered to in both inpatient and ambulatory care settings.
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Against the backdrop of the COVID-19 pandemic, health is receiving unprecedented public and political attention. Yet the fact that climate change a
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lso presents us with a health crisis deserves further recognition. From more deaths due to heat stress to increased transmission of infectious diseases, climate change affects the social and environmental determinants of health in ways that are profound and far-reaching. The fundamental interdependency of human health and the health of the environment is encapsulated in the concept of planetary health, a scientific field and social movement that has been gaining force since the 2015 publication of the Rockefeller Foundation-Lancet Commission report “Safeguarding human health in the Anthropocene epoch”.
We see an urgent need for strategic communication to raise awareness of climate-health synergies in order to overcome the misperception that climate and health are two independent agendas. The fragmented and sector-focused nature of thinking and action remains a significant barrier to integrating health considerations into climate planning and project development. Inevitably, collaboration across sectors requires a community of practice. Despite recent efforts focused on the climate-health nexus, much work remains to be done to translate scientific findings for policymakers, mobilise climate financing resources in support of health co-benefits, and promote genderjust solutions within climate change projects.
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