During the year 2022, COVID-19 continued to be a significant challenge in Eritrea as in many other countries across the world. As COVID-19 devastated communities around the world, WHO worked with the MoH to strengthen the National and Sub-National <...span class="attribute-to-highlight medbox">health systems in order to meet community needs and mitigate the devastation during the pandemic and beyond.
One of the major achievements in the year 2022 was the beginning of the journey towards validation of
the elimination of mother to child transmission of HIV, syphilis, and hepatitis B. This is the culmination of years
of commitment and determination by the political leadership, national and international partnerships to
reduce the associated indices to levels that qualify for elimination.
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A survey was conducted in countries in all six WHO regions and focused on the building blocks that are considered prerequisites to combat antimicrobial resistance: a comprehensive national plan, laboratory capacity to undertake surveillance ...ass="attribute-to-highlight medbox">for resistant microorganisms, access to safe, effective antimicrobial medicines, control of the misuse of these medicines, awareness and understanding among the general public and effective infection prevention and control programmes.
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One health Response to AMR Containment.
In a significant move for the public health sector, Kerala has become the first state in India to launch a...n action plan to combat the growing cases of antimicrobial immunity, arising primarily from irrational use of medicines and excessive antibiotics used in livestock and poultry.
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A toolkit to equip young people with the skills to become powerful advocates for Youth Sexual Reproductive Health and Rights (YSRH&R)
Accessed: ...17.11.2019
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Prevention, early diagnosis, and effective treatment are essential for the control and elimination of Neisseria gonorrhoeae as a public ...="attribute-to-highlight medbox">health problem. Currently, in Latin America and the Caribbean, treatment for gonorrhea infection is largely empiric and based on clinical diagnosis. In the Americas, the high burden of new N. gonorrhoeae infections (estimated at 11 million new cases a year), the complexity of the disease epidemiology, and in many countries the limited resources, make it difficult to fully understand the burden of disease and the burden of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) in N. gonorrhoeae.
PAHO has developed this document to facilitate the navigation of available guidance and recommendations for N. gonorrhoeae AMR surveillance by public health and health care professionals, at the national and subnational levels, involved in designing, implementing, and/or strengthening AMR surveillance of N. gonorrhoeae and overall surveillance of sexually transmitted infections.
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Evidence from a systematic review on antenatal zinc supplementation was evaluated as part of the World Health Organization (WHO) antenatal care (ANC) guideline development process in 2016, and the f...ollowing recommendation on zinc supplementation was made: “Zinc supplementation for pregnant women is only recommended in the context of rigorous research.” The Guideline Development Group (GDG) made this recommendation because it felt that the evidence on the intervention was incomplete and that more research was necessary.
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This working paper was conceived to offer practical tips and suggestions on how to establish and sustain the multisectoral coordination needed to develop ...and implement National Action Plans on AMR (NAPs). It is intended for anyone with responsibility for addressing AMR at country level. Drawing on both the published literature and the operational experience of four ‘focal countries’ (Ethiopia, Kenya, Philippines and Thailand), it summarizes lessons learned and the latest thinking on multisectoral working to achieve effective AMR action. The experience in focal countries points to a number of tools and tactics that can be used to help establish and enhance sustainable multisectoral collaboration for AMR action. These can be grouped into four categories: political commitment, resources, governance mechanisms, and practical management.
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Tuberculosis (TB) is, and should be, a curable disease; however, each year significant numbers of patients acquire or develop drug-resistant TB, which has a much lower cure rate. Patients with drug-resistant TB have a high prevalence of sympto...ms; hence, staff caring for these patients should have some familiarity with palliative care, so that general palliative care principles are available to all patients. The timely identification, and addressing, of adverse events occurring during the treatment course is considered as general palliative care for those receiving curative treatment. This publication summarizes the general palliative care approach, which is recommended for use in settings and services that occasionally treat palliative care patients, but do not provide palliative care as the main focus of their work. The review focuses on 18 high TB priority countries of the WHO European Region.
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The primary focus of the plan continues to be prevention, preparedness and treatment of the the Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak. Central to the plan are the following overall objectives:
To prevent further transmission of COVID-19 in the ...oPt;
To provide adequate care for patients affected by COVID-19 and to support their families and close contacts; and
To mitigate the worst effects of the pandemic.
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Tuberculosis (TB) prevention is essential for reaching the End TB targets in the South-East Asia Region (SEAR) of World Health Organization (WHO)1. The targets of 80% reduction in TB incidence rate ...and 90% reduction in TB mortality by 2030 (compared to 2015 levels) can be achieved only with additional interventions aimed at preventing TB, according to epidemiological modelling studies commissioned by the WHO South-East Asia Regional Office (WHO SEARO). Optimal implementation of TB preventive treatment (TPT) is a critical intervention to accelerate reduction in TB burden in the SEA Region, which bears nearly 43% of the global TB burden. TPT by itself has the potential to reduce the overall annual TB incidence rates by 8.3% (95% CrI 6.5–10.8) relative to 2015.
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The document explains why vector control is important in national programmes and describes the preparation of a tailor-made vector control plan for national programmes. It outlines entomological pro...cedures for regular and specific vector control and how data should be analysed for better overall understanding of filarial transmission and vectors. The document will also be useful for teaching personnel in lymphatic filariasis programmes about the use and value
of entomological procedures in overall epidemiological appraisal in the context of
elimination
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This document contains a series of desk reviews for the eight ENGAGE-TB priority countries supported by the Global Fund (DRC, Kenya, Indonesia, Mozambique, Myanmar, Nigeria, Pakistan ...tribute-to-highlight medbox">and Tanzania). The document provides a situation assessment and gap analysis about the state of community based TB activities in these countries. The focus on these eight countries was justified by the high prevalence of TB and the very high number of missed/unreported cases.
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The harmful use of alcohol causes approximately 3 million deaths every year and the overall burden of disease and injuries attributable to alcohol consumption remains unacceptably high. The pace of ...development and implementation of alcohol policies has been uneven in WHO regions, and resources and capacities for implementation of the WHO Global strategy to reduce the harmful use of alcohol 10 years after its endorsement do not correspond to the magnitude of the problems. On this basis, the WHO Executive Board in its decision EB146 (14) called for accelerated action to reduce the harmful use of alcohol.
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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 ...te-to-highlight medbox">system and its power network threaten people, compromise the provision of health care, and complicate the distribution of essential medicines and equipment.
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Bonchial asthma is the most common chronic respiratory disease in the world. In Kenya, it has been estimated that about 7.5% of the Kenyan population, nearly 4 million people, are currently living with asthma. Many cases tend to be underdiagnosed and...> undertreated which leads to high levels of morbidity and avoidable deaths. The consequences of poorly controlled asthma, including physical, mental, social, and economic impacts, are magnified in the poor on account of poor access to asthma services and sub-optimal quality of those services. With these guidelines, Kenya's Ministry of Health aims to work towards embedding asthma care in Universal Health Care (UHC) to ensure that quality asthma services are available in primary care settings with
referral networks strengthened for those who may require secondary and tertiary care. These national asthma guidelines will also ensure that treatment for asthma is standardized in both the public and the non-state health care sector.
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This report compiles data for the first time on the far-reaching consequences of uncontrolled hypertension, including heart attacks, strokes and premature death, along with substantial economic loss...es for communities and countries. It also contains information on the global, regional and country-level burden of hypertension and progress of control efforts.
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The 2020 recommendations for the programmatic management of TB preventive treatment are the first to be released under the rubric of WHO consolidated TB guidelines (Module 1 – Prevention). The WHO consolidated TB guidelines will gradually group al...l TB recommendations and will be complemented by matching modules of a consolidated operational handbook. [1] The handbook will provide practical advice on how to put in place the recommendations at the scale needed to achieve national and global impact. The first handbook module in the series will be on the programmatic management of TB preventive treatment and will accompany the 2020 guidelines.
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This is a pre-deployment training, tailored specially to the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, offered to WHO personnel, consultants, and key partners. The material covered in modules 1-4 is applicable and...pan> 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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Updated 20 Nov. 2020
Countries can use this checklist of hospital governance, structures, plans and protocols to rapidly determine the current capacities of hospitals to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic a...nd to identify gaps and major areas that require investment and action for the development of hospital readiness improvement plans. The tool can be used periodically to monitor hospital emergency operational readiness capacity development
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States, the United Nations and civil society organisations continue to raise concerns about the humanitarian impact caused by the use of explosive weapons in populated areas (EWIPA). This issue is currently being examined from political, legal, soci...o-economic and humanitarian perspectives. The GICHD has undertaken research to provide a technical perspective on the destructive effects of selected explosive weapons to inform the international debate.
The research project attempts to reduce an observed knowledge gap regarding EWIPA. It seeks to provide clarity concerning the immediate physical effects and terminology used when discussing explosive weapons. The project is guided by a group of experts dealing with weapons-related research and practitioners who address the implications of explosive weapons in humanitarian, policy, advocacy and legal fields.
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