This report presents further analysis of the 2015 Nepal Health Facility Survey. Data analysis is based on the Donabedian framework for assessing quality of care in health services, which divides the indicators into three groups: structure, process, and outcome. The World Health Organization Service ...Availability and Readiness Assessment (SARA) indicator guideline was used to assess facility service readiness, service quality and client satisfaction with maternal health services. The study performed both bivariate and multivariate regression analysis to examine the association of maternal health service readiness and quality indicators with client satisfaction.
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Driving progress towards rabies elimination: Results of Gavi’s Learning Agenda on rabies and new WHO position on rabies immunization
The application of digital health technology is growing at a rapid rate in Africa, with the goals of improving the delivery of healthcare services and more effectively reaching out to remote and underserved communities. The lack of enabling guidelines and standards across the continent, on the other... hand, makes it difficult to share data in a meaningful way across the continent.
Considering this, Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) established a task force of 24 members to provide expertise and guidance in the development of AU HIE guidelines and standards. Members of the task force were subject matter experts working in Africa and internationally on the collection, analysis, and exchange of health information. Some of these experts had been involved in previous consultations on defining Africa CDC’s health information systems strategy. A chairperson, co-chairperson, and secretary were elected to engage the task force members in different technical working groups.
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An interregional meeting on leishmaniasis among neighbouring endemic
countries in the Eastern Mediterranean, African and European regions was organized by the World Health Organization (WHO) Regional Office for the Eastern
Mediterranean in Amman, Jordan, from 23 to 25 September 2018. The meeting w...as attended by representatives from the health ministries of Albania, Georgia, Greece, Iran (Islamic Republic of), Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Syrian Arab Republic and Tunisia. Representatives from Afghanistan, Algeria and Libya were unable to attend. The Secretariat comprised staff from WHO headquarters, WHO regional offices in the Eastern Mediterranean, Africa and Europe, WHO country offices in Iraq, Pakistan, Syrian Arab Republic and Yemen, and WHO temporary advisors from Spain and Tunisia.
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The product of all this work is the Standard Treatment Guideline and Essential Medicines List of Common Medical Conditions in the Kingdom of Swaziland. These systematically developed statements are designed to assist practitioners in making decisions about appropriate treatment for specific clinical... conditions. They are meant to reflect expert consensus based on a review of current and published scientific evidence of acceptable approaches to diagnosis, man-agement, or prevention of specific conditions.It is enlightening to note that section A of the document contains the STG, and effort has been made to have the conditions commonly encountered in Swaziland classified according to systems. Written in simple, clear language, each section consists of a short definition followed by common symptoms and signs of the disease or condition and then management (pharmacological and nonpharmacological)
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Promoting health and preventing disease is a critical component of the effort required to achieve Universal Health Coverage (UHC). to date, efforts to achieve UHC have focused mostly on strengthening health systems and their capacities to provide curative care. However, experience from the COVID-19 ...pandemic has reaffirmed the need for resilient health systems, emphasizing primary health care, including preventive and promotive health and well-being.
Emerging from the eye of the storm as the global health lead agency during the pandemic, WHO is equipped with the required insights and actions for a holistic approach to “building back fairer and better” after COVID-19.
The Healthier Populations (UHP) Cluster in the African Region is designed to support Pillar 3 of WHO’s 13th Global Programme of Work (GPW13) which aims to make 1 billion people healthier by reducing health inequities, preventing diseases and injuries, addressing health determinants, and promoting partnerships for collaborative actions amongst all stakeholders.
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To enhance health co-benefits across urban policies which tackle air pollution and climate change, WHO, in cooperation with various international, national, and local partners, implemented the Urban Health Initiative (UHI) pilot project in Accra, Ghana. The Initiative prompted the health sector to u...se its influential position to demonstrate to decision-makers and the public the full range of health, environmental and economic benefits that can be achieved from implementing local emission reduction and energy access policies and strategies. Policy tracking, although not always considered, is a fundamental component of this procedure. It assesses the planning, implementation and progress of a policy to refine or adjust policies with the final objective of increasing the likelihood of the policy being successful. This report is an outcome of the last component of the UHI model process, Policy tracking and monitoring outcomes. The report proposes a framework for tracking urban health policies, with a special focus on the impacts of air quality and energy access on human health and well-being in African countries, giving some examples from the pilot project in Accra. The report also provides resources to survey air quality in cities and other tools to assess public health and the environmental impacts of urban policies and monitor or track their effects.
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In the last decade, Timor-Leste has made remarkable progress in strengthening its health system and improving the health status of its population. This has resulted in an increased life expectancy, and the achievement of Millennium Development Goals such as a reduction in infant and under-five morta...lity, an improvement in maternal and child health outcomes, and an increase in immunization coverage. Further, the country has successfully eliminated infectious diseases such as polio, measles, and maternal and neonatal tetanus. There is full political commitment to reducing the incidence of tuberculosis (TB) by 80% and the number of deaths due to TB by 90% by 2030. The country has made great progress in the context of the pandemic, having established numerous quarantine facilities/isolation centres; trained health-care workers; streamlined the procurement and supply of medicines, consumables, personal protective equipment and other equipment; and strengthened the capacity in critical care across secondary and tertiary health care, to better respond to future pandemics and other disaster situations.
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Nearly 260 000 people died in parts of Somalia between October 2010 and April 2012, including
133 000 children under five during the famine and food crisis in Somalia making it the worst famine in history.
A study commissioned and funded by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Natio...n’s food security and nutrition analysis unit for Somalia stated that the famine early warning systems clearly identified the risk of famine in South Central Somalia in 2010–2011 but timely action to prevent the onset of famine was not taken. The result was large scale
mortality, morbidity and population displacement.
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Since 2000, concerted efforts by national programmes, supported by public–private partnerships, nongovernmental organizations, donors and academia under the auspices and coordination of the World Health Organization (WHO), have produced important achievements in the control of human African trypan...osomiasis (HAT). As a consequence, the disease was targeted for elimination as a public health problem by 2020. The Sixty-sixth World Health Assembly endorsed this goal in resolution WHA66.12 on neglected tropical diseases, adopted in 2013.
National sleeping sickness control programmes (NSSCPs) are core to progressing control of the disease and in adapting to the different epidemiological situations. The involvement of different partners, as well as the support and trust of long-term donors, has been crucial for the achievements.
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A clear understanding of the knowledge, attitudes and practices (KAP) of a particular community is necessary in order to improve control of human African trypanosomiasis (HAT).New screening and diagnostic tools and strategies were introduced into South Sudan, as part of integrated delivery of primar...y healthcare. Knowledge and awareness on HAT, its new/improved screening and diagnostic tools, the places and processes of getting a confirmatory diagnosis and treatment are crucial to the success of this strategy.
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Access to health workers who are fit for purpose, motivated and protected is a fundamental force of health service delivery and the achievement of universal health coverage and the health and health-related Sustainable Development Goals. Data and knowledge of the distribution, skill mix and future d...evelopment needs of the health workforce can mean the difference between enabling or impeding health systems performance, inclusive economic growth and global health security preparedness and response
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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 diseases 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.
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Le secteur de la santé a beaucoup évolué au cours des 20 dernières années. Les innovations technologiques ainsi que notre connaissance des maladies ont contribué à allonger l’espérance de vie au 20ème siècle. Cependant, l’un des plus grands défis
aujourd’hui n’est pas de rester a...u fait des procédures cliniques les plus récentes ou des équipements de haute technologie dernier cri, mais plutôt d’améliorer la sécurité des soins dispensés dans des environnements complexes, sous pression et où la
rapidité d’action joue un grand rôle. Dans ce type d’environnements, les choses peuvent souvent mal tourner. Des événements indésirables surviennent. Des dommages non intentionnels, mais graves, affectent des patients dans le cadre de
la pratique clinique habituelle ou consécutivement à une décision clinique.
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Despite the significant role of vector control in national leishmaniasis control programmes, the programmatic community perceives vector control as the weakest component of leishmaniasis control strategies in terms of resources, scientific evidence of the usefulness of interventions and capacity for... quality-assured implementation. Therefore, the main objective of this manual is to provide practical tools, techniques and procedures to strengthen sand fly control and surveillance in order to improve implementation of leishmaniasis control programmes. The manual provides a rationale for programme managers in different geographical regions on the types of vector control interventions to be used in different epidemiological and environmental settings and also how to measure their impact.
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