During the past five decades, the incidence of dengue has increased 30-fold. Some 50–100 million new infections are estimated to occur annually in more than 100 endemic countries, with a documented further spread to previously unaffected areas; every year hundreds of thousands of severe cases ari
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se, including 20 000 deaths; 264 disability-adjusted life years per million population per year are lost , at an estimated cost for ambulatory and hospitalized cases of US$ 514–1394, often affecting very poor populations. The true numbers are probably far worse, since severe underreporting and misclassification of dengue cases have been documented.
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167,607 dengue cases, including 720 deaths, reported from 1 January to 27 July 2019: 97% higher than in 2018, in spite of a delayed rainy season.
Case Fatality Rate (CFR) of 0.43% as of 27 July 2019 is lower than in the same time period in 2018 (0.54%), but still significantly higher than the reg
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ional average of 0.22% in the Western Pacific.
The Philippines Department of Health (DOH) declared a National Dengue Epidemic on 6 August 2019, urging all regional DOH offices to step up dengue surveillance, case management and outbreak re-sponse, clean-up drives, and vector control in health facilities and communities, conduct Sabayang 4-O’Clock Habit Para sa Deng-Get Out focusing on search and destroy of mosquito breeding sites, and to enable LGUs to use their quick response funds to help address the epidemic.
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Evaluation report
December 2014
This interim guidance is for LTCF managers and corresponding infection prevention and control (IPC) focal persons in LTCF and updates the guidance published in March 2020. The objective of this document is to provide guidance on IPC in LTCFs in the context of COVID-19 to 1) prevent COVID-19-virus fr
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om entering the facility and spreading within the facility, and 2) to support safe conditions for visiting through the rigorous application of IPC procedures for the residents’ well-being. WHO will update these recommendations as new information becomes available.
Availabel in English, French, Russian and Spanish
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The Global Antibiotic Resistance Partnership (GARP)-Mozambique team, in partnership with the Center for Disease Dynamics, Economics & Policy (CDDEP), has produced this report as part of a solid com-mitment to develop actionable policy proposals to tackle antibiotic resistance and improve appropriate
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antibiotic access. It is the result of a thorough review of published and unpublished data on antibiotic resistance and a long internal consultation effort that engaged academic scientists, health professionals and other stakeholders within Mozambique.
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On 31st December 2019, the World Health Organization (WHO) China Country Office was informed of cases of pneumonia of unknown etiology (unknown cause) detected in Wuhan City, Hubei Province of China. On 7th January 2020, Chinese authorities identified a new strain of Coronavirus as the causative age
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nt for the disease. The virus has been renamed by WHO as SARS-CoV-2 and the disease caused by it as COVID-19. The disease since its first detection in China has now spread to over 200 countries/territories, with reports of local transmission happening in more than 160 of these countries/territories. As per WHO (as of 1st April, 2020), there has been a total of 823626 confirmed cases and 40598 deaths due to COVID-19 worldwide.
In India, as on 2nd April, 2020, 1965 confirmed cases (including 51 foreign nationals) and 50 deaths reported from 29 States/UTs. Large number of cases has been reported from Delhi, Karnataka, Kerala, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Telangana and Uttar Pradesh.
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A comprehensive briefing by Half of Syria
April 2020
A comprehensive briefing on the critical challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic to Syrians, as reported by Syrian civil society organisations. These challenges have been collated following extensive interviews with the teams of member and partner
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organisations working in the field in various sectors: health, child care, education, women’s empowerment, media and culture, research, human rights and accountability, relief and social services, and local governance.
This comprehensive briefing also include concrete recommendations formulated by the Syrian civil society.
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The interim Emergency Response Preparedness (ERP) guidance is designed to be a short technical step-by-step guide aimed at non-Humanitarian Response Plan (HRP) countries to support the development, or strengthening, of preparedness measures to ensure that country teams are operationally ready to imp
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lement activities to address the potential non-health impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic and its compound effect on existing risks. The interim guidance is based on the IASC 2015 ERP Guidance.
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Recent forecasts by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) have indicated a risk of locust invasion in West Africa from June 2020. From East Africa, some swarms could reach the eastern part of the Sahel and continue westwards from Chad to Mauritania.
Surveillance and co
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ntrol teams will be mobilized across the region with a focus on Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania, and the Niger, and extended to Senegal. Countries such as Cameroon, the Gambia and Nigeria are also on watch in the event that desert locust spreads to these highly acute food-insecure countries. Since the region could be threatened in the coming months, FAO is strongly encouraging no regret investments in preparedness and anticipatory action to control swarms and safeguard livelihoods, given already high levels of acute food insecurity. Therefore, cost estimates for preparedness, anticipatory action and rapid response have been assessed.
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his revision to the Disaster Management Team’s (DMT) multi-sector response plan for COVID-19 is meant to align the multi-sector plan with the Department of Health’s COVID-19 Emergency Response Plan issued on 24 April 2020. Additionally, at the time of this version, the Department of Education an
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d Department for Community Development and Religion have also issued their own national COVID-19 response and recovery plans.
The Government’s plan maintains a health sector focus and plans for a ‘worst case’ scenario, articulating the process of progressing into containment and subsequently mitigation of community transmission and on to recovery. It presents an opportunity to improve the core capacities of the whole of government, to see where both health and non-health sectors fit in and respond in the immediate and medium terms, and to adapt to the ‘new normal’ that this coronavirus has inevitably presented
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Nested case-control study of health workers exposed to confirmed COVID-19 patients.
Similar objectives to the cohort study but case-control studies may be cheaper and provide robust evidence to characterize and assess the risk factors for SARS-CoV-2 infection in health workers exposed to COVID-19 p
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atients.
Health workers with confirmed COVID-19 will be recruited as cases and other health workers in the same health care setting without infection will be recruited as controls (incidence density sampling).
Secondary objectives are similar to the cohort study.
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This revision to the Disaster Management Team’s (DMT) multi-sector response plan for COVID-19 is meant to align the multi-sector plan with the Department of Health’s COVID-19 Emergency Response Plan issued on 24 April 2020.
Child friendly spaces (CFS) are safe spaces where
communities create nurturing environments in which
children can access free and structured play and
learning activities. CFS, also commonly referred to
as Child Centred Spaces or Safe Spaces for Children,
may provide educational and psychosocial
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support
and other activities that restore a sense of normality
and continuity for children whose lives have been
disrupted by war, natural disaster or other emergency
situations.
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Practical guide for doctors, nurses,laboratory technicians, medical auxiliaries,water and sanitation specialists and logisticians
Hands-on information and practical advice for everyday life and work in the field as well as background information on crisis management structures in international organizations lie at the heart of the new handbook. It has been developed in the realm of Europe’s New Training Initiative for Civili
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an Crisis Management (ENTRi) by the project coordination team at ZIF.
The handbook is designed to accompany civilian experts on their way to crisis management missions. In addition to providing a general overview of the institutional landscape of crisis management as well as relevant concepts, the handbook also provides practical information on a variety of issues that are common to working in a mission. From dealing with health and security challenges to technical information on radio operation, map reading, four-wheel driving – the ENTRi handbook is a valuable companion for work in a mission.
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8 January 2021
Sequencing enabled the world to rapidly identify SARS-CoV-2 and develop diagnostic tests and other tools for outbreak management. Continued genome sequencing supports the monitoring of the disease’s spread and evolution of the virus. Accelerated integration of genome sequencing int
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o the practices of the global health community is required if we want to be better prepared for the future threats. This document provides guidance for laboratories on maximizing the impact of SARS-CoV-2 sequencing now and other emerging pathogens in the future.
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