Solidarity” is an international clinical trial to help find an effective treatment for COVID-19, launched by the World Health Organization and partners.
The Solidarity Trial will compare four treatment options against standard of care, to assess their relative effectiveness against COVID-19. By... enrolling patients in multiple countries, the Solidarity Trial aims to rapidly discover whether any of the drugs slow disease progression or improve survival. Other drugs can be added based on emerging evidence.
Until there is sufficient evidence, WHO cautions against physicians and medical associations recommending or administering these unproven treatments to patients with COVID-19 or people self-medicating with them. WHO is concerned by reports of individuals self-medicating with chloroquine and causing themselves serious harm.
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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 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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Breastfeeding is the cornerstone of infant and young child survival, nutrition and development and maternal health. The World Health Organization recommends exclusive breastfeeding for the first 6 months of life, followed by continued breastfeeding with appropriate complementary foods for up to 2 ye...ars and beyond.1 Early and uninterrupted skin-toskin contact, rooming-in2 and kangaroo mother care3 also significantly improve neonatal survival and reduce morbidity and are recommended by WHO.
Corrigendum 23 June 2020
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The outbreak of COVID-19 comes with unpredictable primary and secondary impacts on vulnerable and food-insecure populations across the world. Mortality and morbidity appear to be most acute for elderly people, and those with underlying health conditions. At the same time, the widely anti...cipated economic downturn could have a more devastating effect on the world’s poor than the virus itself
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Countries can use this tool to collect in-depth facility inventories of biomedical equipment re-allocation, procurement and planning for COVID-19 case management. The survey assesses quantified availability and the causes for non-functioning of different sources of oxygen delivery and supply systems... to the patient in order to determine priorities and re-allocation requirements in accordance with needs.
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This checklist is to accompany the full Interim Technical Note on Protection form Sexual Exploitation and Abuse (PSEA) during COVIID-19 Response.
Available in Englisch, French and Portuguese
Risk Communication and Community Engagement messages
We will soon be piloting a project titled “Integrating Spirituality into Patient Care” that will form “spiritual care teams” to assess and address patients’ spiritual needs in physician outpatient practices within Adventist Health System, the largest Protestant healthcare system ... in the United States.This paper describes the goals, the rationale, and the structure of the spiritual care teams that will soon be implemented, and discusses the barriers to providing spiritual care that health professionals are likely to encounter.Spiritual care teams may operate in an outpatient or an inpatient setting, and their purpose is to provide health professionals with resources necessary to practice whole person healthcare that includes spiritual care.We believe that this project will serve as a model forfaith-based health systems seeking to visibly demonstrate their mission in a way that makes them unique and expresses their values.Not only does this model have the potential to be cost-effective, but also the capacity to increase the quality of patient care and the satisfaction that health professionals derive from providing care.If successful, this model could spread beyond faith-based systems to secular systems as well both in the U.S. and worldwide.
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The semi-structured guided interviewing on ICU nurses in a medical center of southern Taiwan wasapproved by the IRB at the research department of the hospital and data collection was carried out from January toJune 2012. The investigator repeatedly read the transcribed text, and found statements rel...evant to the themes in thetranscriptions to form significant statements as the basis of data analysis. To ensure the rigor of this study, theinvestigator adopted the approach of trustworthiness of qualitative research proposed by Lincoln and Gu.
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PLOSONE| https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0204882October17,2018
This document outlines minimum requirements of laboratory testing for COVID-19 and link laboratory testing with surveillance and contact tracing to guide the outbreak response by national health authorities using a reduced number of tests performed. The strategies are organized according to stages o...f transmission: (1) No cases reported or observed (Stage 0); (2) Imported cases (Stage 1); (3) Localized community transmission (Stage 2); (4) Large-scale community transmission (Stage 3). For each stage, the recommended approaches indicate which testing strategy to prioritize when there are severe limitations on laboratory testing. The document is based on the current epidemiology of COVID-19 and available molecular testing methods.
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The aim of this brief is to ensure that the COVID-19 pandemic does not disrupt the supply of and demand generation for condoms. Sexual relations may be transformed in the new context of the pandemic, but they have not stopped. While access to male and female condoms has been critical in the global r...esponse to reduce HIV, sexually transmitted infections (STIs) and unintended pregnancies over the past three decades, these gains can be lost if condoms are not included in the essential commodities that are freely available to populations during the lockdown of countries. This brief for country condom programme managers and experts provides a summary of relevant actions to sustain supplies of male condoms, female condoms and lubricants, and to adjust approaches for condom promotion during the time of COVID-19
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The COVID-19 pandemic is rapidly spreading across the world and including countries affected by other infectious disease epidemics, such as HIV, tuberculosis (TB) and malaria. Over the past three decades, the global HIV response has gained experience in developing effective prevention approaches. Th...is brief seeks to provide a summary for decision makers and health programme implementers in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) to help them make the best possible choices in preventing the virus responsible for COVID-19.
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Right now, we are facing an unpredictable and highly dynamic situation as a global community. However, as we have seen from the solidarity, support and power of communities in the HIV epidemic and already in communities responding to the COVID-19 pandemic, the response must not be fear and stigma. W...e need to build a culture of solidarity, trust and kindness. Our response to COVID-19 must be grounded in the realities of people’s lives and focused on eliminating the barriers people face in being able to protect themselves and their communities. Empowerment and guidance, rather than restrictions, can ensure that people can act without fear of losing their livelihood, sufficient food being on the table and the respect of their community. Ultimately it will give us a more effective, humane and sustainable response to the epidemic.
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This report presents three scenarios on the impact of COVID-19 in Africa using economic growth forecasts, mortality and efforts to ameliorate impact through social grants. Likely effects are examined on per capita income, poverty and the attainment of selected Sustainable Development Goals targets. ...Africa’s development trajectory has suffered a severe setback, with extreme poverty rising in all the scenarios. The pandemic threatens Africa in several ways, and the report provides policy recommendations to reduce vulnerability and strengthen resilience.
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