Obesity and diet-related noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) have been steadily increasing globally, and with them, a pressing need to implement effective responses to address the contributing factors. Among the available evidence-based policy options that enable healthier choices and improved diets is ...the implementation of taxes on sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs).
This tax manual is a practical guide for policy-makers and others involved in SSB tax policy development to promote healthy diets and populations. It features summaries and case studies of SSB global taxation evidence, and provides support on the policy-cycle development process to implement SSB taxation — from problem identification and situation analysis through policy design, development and implementation to the monitoring and evaluation phase. Additionally, the manual identifies and debunks industry tactics designed to dissuade policy-makers from implementing these taxes.
SSB taxes can be a win-win-win strategy: a win for public health (and averted health-care costs), a win for government revenue, and a win for health equity.
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Climate information is critical towards strengthening the decision making among different users interested in mitigating impacts of climate related disasters. However, there is need for the climate users to have basic knowledge on weather and climate concepts and to a larger extend, early warning ea...rly action (EWEA) system and approach. This manual presents an opportunity for the climate users including communities to acquire basic knowledge on Early Warning Early Action and this entails; understanding risk areas, existing early warning systems, communication of early warning information and enhancing disaster preparedness through translating early warning into early actions. The EWEA manual largely target the users in different sectors and communities. The execution of the EWEA manual is planned for 3 days and this does incorporate different methods such as; PowerPoint presentation, group work discussions as well as practical exercises.
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This report assesses the impact of the conflict in Ukraine and its implications for organized crime and security-related issues for neighbouring countries, with a focus on Moldova.
These include:
Organized crime and illicit trafficking (including trafficking in persons, drugs, arms, illicit toba...cco, and other goods); Cybercrimes and fraud; Disinformation and propaganda; and Chemical, Biological, Radiological, and Nuclear (CBRN) threats.
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Indian markets caused a stir across the country.1
According to the Centre for Science and the Environment (CSE), a respected New Delhi-based NGO, most honey brands
sold in India contained varying amounts of antibiotics. Their consumption over time could induce resistance to antibiotics,
putting p...eople at risk of treatment failure in case of severe infections.
For the study, 12 samples were picked in Delhi, all well-known brands, including one each from Australia and Switzerland.
Antibiotics found included Chloramphenicol and various broad-spectrum drugs such as Ciprofloxacin and Erythromycin.
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The indicators and questions in this document are designed for use by national AIDS programmes and partners to assess the state of a country’s HIV and AIDS response, and to measure progress towards achieving national HIV targets. Countries are encouraged to integrate these indicators and questions... into their ongoing monitoring efforts and to report comprehensive national data through the Global AIDS Monitoring (GAM) process. In this way they will contribute to improving understanding of the global response to the HIV epidemic, including progress that has been made towards achieving the commitments and global targets set out in the new United Nations Political Declaration on HIV and AIDS: Ending Inequalities and Getting on Track to End AIDS by 2030, adopted in June 2021, and the linked Sustainable Development Goals.
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This new guidance aims to support programme implementers, coordinators and others in humanitarian settings in their actions to counter suicide and self-harm in humanitarian contexts and to save lives.
Trachoma causes more vision loss and blindness than any other infection in the world. This disease is caused by Chlamydia trachomatis bacteria. Other variants or strains of these bacteria can cause a sexually transmitted infection (chlamydia) and disease in lymph nodes.
This is photomicrograph ...of a conjunctival smear that revealed the presence of what are known as, intracytoplasmic inclusions Trachoma is easily spread through direct personal contact such as from fingers, through shared towels and clothes, and through flies that have been in contact with the eyes or nose of an infected person. When left untreated, repeated Chlamydia trachomatis infections in the eye can cause severe scarring on the inside of the eyelid. This can cause the eyelashes to scratch the cornea (trichiasis). In addition to causing pain, trichiasis permanently damages the cornea and can lead to irreversible blindness.
Chlamydia trachomatis infections spread in areas that lack access to safely managed drinking water and sanitation systems. Trachoma affects the most resource-limited communities in the world. Globally, almost 1.9 million people have vision loss because of trachoma, and it causes 1.4% of all blindness worldwide.1 In 2021, 136 million people lived in trachoma-endemic areas and were at risk of trachoma blindness.
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This Guide responds to requests from practitioners and country teams who have learned about the Nurturing care framework and want to understand how to adapt health and nutrition services to be supportive of nurturing care and strengthen caregivers’ capacity.
The sixteenth meeting of the Strategic and Technical Advisory Group for Neglected Tropical Diseases (STAG-NTD) was held as a hybrid meeting, 27–28 September 2022.
Dr Ren Minghui, Assistant Director-General, Universal Health Coverage/Communicable and Noncommunicable Diseases, welcomed participan...ts to the meeting. He said the World Health Organization’s Department of Control of Neglected Tropical Diseases (WHO/NTD) was in a state of transition. Following the death of the late esteemed Director Dr Mwelecele Ntuli Malecela earlier in the year, Dr Gautam Biswas had taken over as Acting Director but would soon retire; the appointment of a new Director was under way. Owing to rotation of STAG-NTD members, this would be the last meeting for some and the first meeting for several new participants. The work however would continue with the same commitment. Discussions over the next two days would focus on critical issues regarding recovery of NTD services following the disruptions caused by coronavirus disease (COVID-19), which had impacted many health services worldwide. He looked forward to receiving the advice and guidance of STAG-N
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Not long ago, on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the discovery of Chagas disease, several campaigns denounced the scant progress has been made in diffrent spheres- medical, scientific and politcal- but major challanges still remain. This is an appropriate time to celebrate what has been ach...ieved and to take the next step.
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A key component of elimination is to reduce the number
of unmanaged trachomatous trichiasis cases to less than
1 per 1,000 population in affected areas. This will require
not only a large increase in the number of surgeries
performed, but also improvements in the quality of surgery
and in the e...fficiency of surgery provision programs. It also
will require that we make special efforts to reach out to
women and the most marginalized populations, who are
disproportionally affected by trichiasis (TT).
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WHO needs US$2.54 billion to provide life-saving assistance to millions of people around the world facing health emergencies. WHO’s Health Emergency Appeal is a consolidation of WHO’s priorities and financial requirements for 2023 to carry out health interventions in emergency and humanitarian r...esponses. The number of people in need of humanitarian relief has increased by almost a quarter compared to 2022, to a record 339 million. WHO is responding to an unprecedented number of intersecting health emergencies: climate change-related disasters such as flooding in Pakistan and food insecurity across the Sahel in the greater Horn of Africa; the war in Ukraine; and the health impact of conflict in Yemen, Afghanistan, Syria and north eastern Ethiopia – all of these emergencies overlapping with the health system disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and outbreaks of measles, cholera, and other killers. Contributions to the appeal can be fully flexible, flexible across a region, or flexible within a country appeal.
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Report of the WHO/Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Consultation. The Consultation was organized back-to-back with the first annual meeting of the International Coordinating Group of the BMGF-funded project for human and dog rabies elimination in developing countries, held at WHO headquarters, Geneva,... Switzerland, from 5 to 7 October 2009. This allowed the Consultation to benefit from the participation of the national coordinators and advisers of the BMGF-funded projects in the Philippines, South Africa (KwaZulu-Natal) and the United Republic of Tanzania
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Mem Inst Oswaldo Cruz, Rio de Janeiro, Vol. 117: e200460, 2022
Integrating the multiple dimensions of the problem into a coherent approach adapted to field realities and needs represents an immense challenge, but the payoff is more effective and sustainable experiences, with higher social awareness..., increased case detection and follow-up, improved adherence to care, and integrated participation of various actors from multiple action levels. Information, Education, and Communication (IEC) initiatives have great potential for impact in the implementation of multidimensional programs of prevention and control successfully customised to the diverse and complex contexts where Chagas disease persists.
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This document compiles the recommendations made by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) to help professionals in charge of vector control programs in Latin America and the Caribbean at the national, subnational, and local level update their knowledge in... order to make evidence-based decisions on the most appropriate control measures for each specific situation. IVM can be used for surveillance and control or for elimination of VBDs and can help reduce the development of insecticide resistance through the rational use of these products. This document provides instructions for fulfillment of the 2008 PAHO mandate set forth in CD 48/13 (Integrated Vector Management).
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El presente documento reúne un conjunto de recomendaciones formuladas por la Organización Mundial de la Salud (OMS) y la Organización Panamericana de la Salud (OPS) para ayudar, a los profesionales encargados de los programas de control de vectores de Latinoamérica y el Caribe a nivel nacional, ...subnacional y local, a actualizar y tomar decisiones basadas en la evidencia sobre las medidas de control más apropiadas para cada situación específica. El MIV puede utilizarse cuando la meta es la vigilancia y el control o la eliminación (dependiendo de la situación específica) de las ETV y puede contribuir a reducir el desarrollo de la Resistencia a los insecticidas mediante el uso racional de estos productos. Este documento contiene las instrucciones para llevar a cabo el mandato de la OPS del 2008 sobre el control integrado de vectores (resolución CD48.R8, documento CD48/13) y, en particular, complementa una serie de guías de la OMS publicadas en el 2012
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Revised and expanded version of the Guidelines
Schistosomiasis is widely recognized as a disease that is socially determined. An understanding of the social and behavioural factors linked to disease transmission and control should play a vital role in designing policies and strategies for schistosomiasis prevention and control. To this must be a...dded the awareness that schistosomiasis is also a disease of poverty. It still survives in poverty-stricken, remote areas where there is little or no safe water or sanitation, and health care is scarce or non-existent. For a variety of complex reasons, many of which are addressed in this book, the disease is particularly prevalent in sub-Saharan Africa, and persists in certain areas of rural China. This concern for human behaviour in an environment of poverty echoes the concerns of the new research priority for “diseases of poverty” identified by the Special Programme for Research & Training in Tropical Diseases.
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Climate change presents the single biggest threat to human development, and its widespread impacts disproportionately burden the poorest and most vulnerable households in fragile and rural developing contexts – particularly women and children.
According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate C...hange’s (IPCC) latest report, ‘between 2010 and 2020, droughts, floods and storms killed 15 times as many people in highly vulnerable countries, particularly in Africa — which is responsible for less than 3 percent of global emissions – than in the wealthiest countries’.
Recognising environmental degradation and climate change are key accelerators of extreme child vulnerability, World Vision (WV) approved the Environmental Stewardship Management Policy (‘the Policy’) and Guidelines (‘the Guidelines’) in 2021.
To support the implementation of the Policy and Guidelines, WV has developed this Environmental Stewardship and Climate Action Handbook (‘the Handbook’) to help offices across the WV Partnership implement best practice environmental management strategies both in the field and in our operations and facilities.
Integrating environmental stewardship and climate action into all our work – whether that be in our Area Programmes, grant projects, responses to disasters or advocacy – is critical to achieving WV’s strategy.
As a Christian organisation we are compelled to follow the ways of Jesus Christ, calling us to care for the ‘least of these’ (Matthew 25:40) – the vulnerable children who are disproportionately impacted by climate change. Our response to the degradation of the environment is not motivated by political expediency or funding – but because we are called to steward God’s creation (Genesis 1:28).
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After five consecutive below-average rains, the humanitarian crisis in the Horn of Africa is expanding and deepening.
Combined with insecurity and macroeconomic volatility, the impact of the drought on food and nutrition security has been devastating. Across Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia, an estima...ted 22 million people are now acutely food insecure because of the drought. The malnutrition situation is also critical. Some 5.1 million children across drought-affected areas of the three countries are acutely malnourished in 2023, with dire implications for their health, growth and survival. Concerningly, the upcoming March-May 2023 rains are also forecast to be below-average. Should these rains fail, and humanitarian assistance not be delivered at scale, food insecurity will continue to deteriorate.
Regardless of how the 2023 rains perform, extremely high humanitarian needs will persist through 2023 while a full recovery from a drought of this magnitude will take years. To address the devastating drought-induced hunger and malnutrition across the region, WFP is pursuing an integrated dual track approach; meeting immediate life-saving food and nutritional needs while simultaneously building resilience to extreme climate variability.
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