National Safe Surgery Strategic PLAN Saving Lives Through Safe Surgery (SaLTS) Strategic Plan 2016–2020
COVID-19 outbreak is associated with the generation of many types of infectious wastes, including infected masks, gloves and other protective equipment, together with a higher volume of general waste of the same nature.
Emergency medical teams (EMTs) play an important role in strengthening health service networks in terms of their strategies and tactics for planning mass vaccination programs, especially in remote or under-resourced areas or those overwhelmed by COV...ID-19. EMTs experience deploying in remote areas and handling operational challenges to ensure their response even under the most austere conditions will be of great support in facing the technical and logistical challenges to timely and equitable access to vaccines at the local level.
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A implementation Matrix approved by the Cabinet of the Government of South Africa
The strategic framework gives guidance to public and private health facilities and health workers on compliance with standards relating to IPC practices. To further assist ...highlight medbox">health facilities to implement the IPC strategic framework, this practical implementation manual has been developed in parallel to accompany the document.
These implementation strategies should be read in conjunction with the National Infection Prevention and Control (IPC) Strategic Framework (2020) to support an IPC programme at health facility level towards reducing healthcare-associated infections (HAI) and antimicrobial resistance (AMR). This manual is aligned with the World Health Organization (WHO) Core Component IPC programme recommendations and highlights the essentials for developing and improving IPC at health facility level in a systematic, stepwise manner for South Africa. It supports the Framework for the Prevention and Containment of AMR in South African Hospitals (2018).
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These guidelines are based on the 3rd Edition of the WHO Guidelines (Published 2015) World Health Organization’s Guidelines for the treatment of malaria. Additional literature surveys have been undertaken. Factors that were considered in the choic...e of therapeutic options included effectiveness, safety, and impact on malaria transmission and on the emergence and spread of antimalarial drug resistance. On-going surveillance is critical given the spread of artemisinin resistance in Southeast Asia, although not yet confirmed anywhere in Africa. The guidelines on the treatment of malaria in South Africa aim to facilitate effective, appropriate and timeous treatment of malaria, thereby reducing the burden of this disease in our communities. This is essential to further reduce the malaria case fatality rates currently recorded in South Africa, to decrease malaria transmission and to limit resistance to antimalarial drugs.
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Nurses are key players in health promotion and disease prevention and the backbone of health care systems worldwide. Nurses work on the front lines of disease prevention, ...ighlight medbox">health promotion, and health management and are often the unsung heroes in health care facilities and emergency response. Despite the critical role they play in health care, there is a nursing shortage across the world that will affect the delivery of competent nursing care. This document highlights key action points for targeted investment in the nursing workforce and calls on Member States to strengthen nursing within the context of their own country efforts.
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Diabetes is a major public health problem in the Americas and worldwide, demanding special attention and integrated response. It is estimated that more than 62 million adults are living with diabetes in the Americas. The projections show that diabet...es prevalence will continue to increase to at least 2025. Its steady rise has been mainly due to the high prevalence of risk factors, especially overweight/obesity and physical inactivity. Diabetes also is one of the leading causes of mortality and disability worldwide and across our Region.
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Lancet Planet Health 2022;6: e760–68
The emergence of COVID-19 has drawn the attention of health researchers sharply back to the role that food systems can play in generating human disease burden.... But emerging pandemic threats are just one dimension of the complex relationship between agriculture and infectious disease, which is evolving rapidly, particularly in low-income and middle-income countries (LMICs) that are undergoing rapid food system transformation. This changing relationship is examined through four current disease issues.
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Maternal mortality has fallen significantly in recent years, especially in countries that have emphasized the prevention of its main causes, such as hemorrhagic and infectious complications and hypertension , including in the Region of the Americas. In its final report on the Plan of Action to Accel...erate the Reduction of Maternal Mortality and Severe Maternal Morbidity, the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) reported a continuing downward trend in maternal mortality, with an 18.1% reduction in the maternal morbidity ratio during the period 2010-2015 . From a pathophysiological perspective, death events are a common end result of a wide spectrum of complications leading to multi-organ dysfunction. However, there is a group of women in this situation who survive, despite the seriousness of their condition. This high number of patients––who were in serious condition
but did not die––reflects the actual health conditions in an institution or a country. For this reason, there is a need to create indicators to estimate morbidity in women due to diseases and incidents that occur during pregnancy, childbirth, and the puerperium. To this end, we propose conducting epidemiological surveillance of an indicator that includes women who survived after presenting a potentially fatal complication during pregnancy, childbirth, or the puerperium, reflecting quality medical attention and care (5, 6). This indicator
is maternal near-miss (MNM), which refers to extremely severe maternal morbidity––cases of a severity that
brings women very close to the death event. After adjusting the definition to a specific population and time,
MNM is defined as a case in which a woman nearly died, but survived a complication that occurred during
pregnancy, childbirth, or within 42 days of termination of pregnancy
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This manual provides a framework for morbidity management and disability prevention of patients affected by NIDs and gives specific guidance for the proper care of patients suffering from chronic conditions caused by lymphatic filariasis, leprosy, trachoma, and Chagas disease. It is intended to be u...sed mainly by health care workers at the primary health care level, but health workers at more complex and specialized levels may also find it useful.
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Gambiense human African trypanosomiasis is a deadly infectious disease affecting West and Central Africa, South Sudan and Uganda, and transmitted between humans by tsetse flies. The disease has caused several major epidemics, the latest one in the 1990s. Thanks to recent innovations such as rapid di...agnostic tests for population screening, a single-dose oral treatment and a highly efficient vector control strategy, interruption of transmission of the causative parasite is now within reach. If indeed gHAT has an exclusively human reservoir, this could even result in eradication of the disease. Even if there were an animal reservoir, on the basis of epidemiological data, it plays a limited role. Maintaining adequate postelimination surveillance in known historic foci, using the newly developed tools, should be sufficient to prevent any future resurgence.
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This is an e-learning module with the objective of providing education for health professionals and pregnant women using published results and studies based on COVID-19 surveillance data, which have indicated an increased risk among pregnant women o...f presenting with severe forms of COVID-19 and, therefore, of being hospitalized and admitted to intensive care units.
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Snakebite is an acute life threatening time limiting medical emergency. It is a preventable public
health hazard often faced by rural population in tropical and subtropical countries with heavy
rainfall and humid climate.
The Water and Sanitation for Health Facility Improvement Tool (WASH FIT) presents a framework and acts as a guide to support multisectoral action to improve water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) in health...span> care. Central to the WASH FIT methodology is training and incremental improvements.
Implementation of WASH FIT requires six preparatory steps at the national level, one of which is conducting national sensitization and training of trainers, followed by facility-level training. At the facility level, step 1 (of five) involves establishing and training a WASH FIT team.
The WASH FIT methodology is outlined in WASH FIT: A practical guide for improving quality of care through water, sanitation and hygiene in health care facilities. Second edition. (the WASH FIT guide), which includes a set of templates designed to help users with each phase of the improvement cycle.
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A year ago, the second Special Session of the World Health Assembly (WHASS) unanimously agreed to start a diplomatic process for a new binding instrument aimed at ensuring the international community is better prepared for the next ...ibute-to-highlight medbox">health emergencies. The establishment of an Intergovernmental Negotiating Body (INB) at the WHO paved the terrain for a proper negotiation, which has started to unfold. The INB will be releasing the “conceptual zero draft” of the treaty text in early December 2022.
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