This booklet presents key messages for action, summarized from a set of chapters on different environmental health issues, available at www.who.int/ ceh/publications/healthyenvironmentsforhealthychildren. The work is a result of an on-going partnership between WHO, UNEP
...
and UNICEF in the area of children’s environmental health, and seeks to update the 2002 joint publication “Children in the New Millennium: Environmental Impact on Health.”
more
The world is not on track to end the AIDS pandemic. New infections are rising and AIDS deaths are continuing in too many communities. This report reveals why: inequalities are holding us back. In frank terms, the report calls the world’s attention
...
to the painful reality that dangerous inequalities are undermining the AIDS response and jeopardising the health security of everyone. The report highlights three specific areas of inequality for which concrete action is immediately possible—gender
inequalities and harmful masculinities driving HIV; marginalisation and criminalisation of key populations, which our data show is resulting in starkly little progress for those populations and undermining the overall response; and
inequalities for children whose lives must matter more than their market share. But this is not a counsel of despair, it is a call to action. Through bold action to confront these inequalities, we can end AIDS.
more
The WHO Pharmaceuticals Newsletter provides you with the latest information on the safety of medicinal products and regulatory actions taken by authorities around the world.
In addition, this edition includes summary
...
and recommendations from the virtual meeting of the members of the WHO Programme for International Drug Monitoring (PIDM) and other partners, which was held on 20 October 2022.
more
Since 24 February 2022, the war in Ukraine has caused widespread suffering to its people and serious damage
to the country’s infrastructure. Attacks on the country’s health system and its power
...
network threaten people, compromise the provision of health care, and complicate the distribution of essential medicines and equipment.
more
The Country Cooperation Strategy is the World Health Organization’s corporate framework developed in response to a country’s needs and priorities. The 2022–2025 CCS is the fourth for WHO in Sierra Leone. It is a medium-term strategic document
...
that defines a broad framework for WHO’s work, at all levels, with the Government of Sierra Leone and all health partners for the next four years. This document is guided by the country’s major policy and strategy documents including the 2020 National Health and Sanitation Policy (NHSP); the 2021–2025 National Health Sector Strategic Plan (NHSSP); and the 2019–2023 National Medium-term Development Plan (NMTDP). The current CCS also reflects the broad priorities of WHO as outlined in its Thirteenth General Programme of Work (2019–2023, extended to 2025) with a focus on improving access to universal health coverage, protecting people from health emergencies, and improving people’s health and well-being. The CCS priorities are also in alignment with the United Nations Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework (UNSDCF) in Sierra Leone and will contribute to attaining the country's SDG targets
more
The 2018 global health financing report presents health spending data for all WHO Member States between 2000 and 2016 based on the SHA 2011 methodology. It shows a transformation trajectory for the global spending on health, with increasing domestic
...
public funding and declining external financing. This report also presents, for the first time, spending on primary health care and specific diseases and looks closely at the relationship between spending and service coverage
more
The Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste has the highest TB incidence rate in the South East Asian Region - 498 per 100,000, which is the seventh highest in the world. In Timor-Leste TB is the eighth most common cause of death.
The salient observations are as follows:
In 2018, 487 (12.5%) of the
...
3906 notified TB patients were tested for RR-TB and only 12 lab confirmed RR-TB patients were initiated on standard MDR-TB treatment of 20-months duration, (a 3-fold increase in RR-TB detection compared with 2017). This amounts to treatment coverage of only 17% of 72 estimated MDR/RR-TB among notified TB patients (3906) and 5% of 240 estimated incident MDR-TB patients as compared to 62% treatment coverage of 6300 incident drug sensitive TB patients estimated in TLS. The treatment success in the 2016 annual cohort of 6 MDR-TB patients has been reported at 83%. 80% of TB patients know their HIV Status with around 1% TB-HIV co-infection, 37/ 77 (48%) TB-HIV Co-infection Detected. Of the 387 PLHIV currently alive on ART, exact status on TB screening and testing is unknown. % of PLHIV newly enrolled in HIV care who received IPT is not known.
In 2018, the mortality rate for TB was 94 deaths per 100,000 people (1200 per annum) in TL with an increasing mortality trend (Figure 1), despite TB services being available for nearly two decades.
A survey of catastrophic costs due to TB (2016) highlights that 83% of TB patients are reported to be facing catastrophic costs due to the disease. This is the highest rate in the world.
more
WHO commissioned a survey, carried out in September/October 2015, among some 10 000 members of the public in 12 countries (2 per WHO Region: Barbados, China, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Nigeria, the Russian Federation, Serbia, South Africa, Sudan and
...
Viet Nam) on their use of antibiotics, knowledge of antibiotics and of antibiotic resistance. While not claiming to be exhaustive, this and other surveys will help WHO and partners to ensure efforts are focused on tackling some of the biggest gaps in understanding and the most prevalent misconceptions
more
Notable progress has also been made on other key health indicators such as reducing maternal, infant and child deaths and malnutrition, increasing immunization coverage, eliminating infectious disea
...
ses such as polio and reducing the incidence of malaria, tuberculosis and diarrhoeal diseases.
But despite such substantial progress, the country now faces new and emerging new challenges such as the rising burden of noncommunicable diseases, increased risks associated with disasters, environmental threats and health emergencies during disease outbreaks including the COVID-19 pandemic that is a serious public health threat to Bangladesh. To establish a resilience system for future potential pandemics, the national capacity for emergency preparedness and early response to health emergencies needs to be bolstered considerably.
more
TB policies in 29 Countries
A survey of prevention, testing and treatment policies and practices
Following the encouraging initial results of the pilot project, the Ministry of Health is committed to increasing access to MDR-TB diagnosis, treatment and care. An expansion plan for the programmatic management of drug-resistant TB has been develop
...
ed and forms part of the Five Year National Strategic Plan for TB Control, 2011-2015. The long-term goals of the MDR-TB expansion plan are threefold:
1. Diagnosis of MDR-TB in all groups of patients at risk for MDR-TB
2. Diagnosis of MDR-TB in all HIV-infected TB patients
3. MDR-TB treatment for all patients diagnosed with MDR-TB under WHO-endorsed treatment protocols
more
Neurological, Psychiatric, and Developmental Disorders: Meeting the Challenge in the Developing World
Institute of Medicine (US) Committee on Nervous System Disorders in Developing Countries.
Washington (DC): National Academies Press (US); 2001.
...
more
This document adopts a health determinants framework for examining the evidence related to women’s poor mental health. From this perspective, public policy including economic policy, socio-cultural and environmental factors, community
...
and social support, stressors and life events, personal behaviour and skills, and availability and access to health services, are all seen to exercise a role in determining women’s mental health status. Similarly, when considering the differences between women and men, a gender approach has been used. While this does not exclude biological or sex differences, it considers the critical roles that social and cultural factors and unequal power relations between men and women play in promoting or impeding mental health. Such inequalities create, maintain and exacerbate exposure to risk factors that endanger women’s mental health, and are most graphically illustrated in the significantly different rates of depression between men and women, poverty and its impact, and the phenomenal prevalence of violence against women.
more
Teachers' Exercise Book for HIV Prevention
Document 6.1
This booklet contains all the participatory learning experiences that are included in the Training and Resource Manual on School Health and
...
HIV and AIDS Prevention. It is to be given to all teachers who receive training as part of the EI/WHO School Health and HIV Prevention Project. Other groups may wish to copy and use the materials in this document to help adults and students prevent HIV infection and related discrimination.
more
The purpose of these guidelines is to give practical advice to doctors so that all services and models of care used by doctors and health workers are encouraged to consider the use of telemedicine a
...
s a part of normal practice. These guidelines will assist the medical practitioner in pursuing a sound course of action to provide effective and safe medical care founded on current information, available resources, and patient needs to ensure patient and provider safety.
more
The Internews Humanitarian Information Services Learning Collection communicates key lessons, best practices, and programmatic methodologies used by Internews’ humanitarian teams around the world.
Each module within the Learning Collection includ
...
es three parts: Context, Case Studies, and a How-To Guide. The Context and Case Studies are packaged separately for ease of use.
more
2020 is a critical year for our Joint Programme as we collectively define the path to getting back on track to ending the AIDS epidemic by 2030. Our revised timelines for adoption of the next strategy are highly ambitious. We need the full support of all the tremendously dedicated people in UNAIDS-w
...
ithin our staff, our board and all our stakeholders to make this happen.
more
My Child: 0 to 2 years is a free book from the HSE with advice to help you and your baby from birth to age 2. This edition has text in English with Arabic translation.
Wound care is a regular component of the package of care we offer in the majority of our health care facilities and represents a high volume of activities. The current practices in MSF projects are often based on the habits of each in
...
dividual supervisor, the wound care material we offer is partly outdated and does not allow optimal wound care. There is a need for standardization of wound care and it needs to be evidence based as much as possible, taking into account the realities of the field.
The scope of this document is to guide the caregiver in the wound care process. It does not intend to provide in depth information on wound healing or physiology. There is a wide range of literature and background information available for this purpose in the references and in the list of extra reading
more
UNHCR’s Public Health Strategy 2021-2025 is based on the lessons learnt, and builds on the achievements, of the Global Strategy for Public Health 2014-2018.
Progress was made on policies favouring inclusion
...
and integration into national systems3 with 92% of 48 operations surveyed reporting refugees having access to national primary health care facilities under the same conditions as nationals and 96% reporting refugees having access to all relevant vaccines under the same conditions as nationals. While many refugee hosting countries have policies that allow refugees to access national health services, many face partial access, prohibitive out-of-pocket expenditures and other barriers including distance to facilities, language and provider acceptance. Furthermore, more work is needed on strengthening these systems to be able to meet the needs of both host communities and refugees.
more