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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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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Lymphatic filariasis (LF) infection if untreated results in fluid accumulation in the limbs or breasts (lymphedema) or genitalia (hydrocele) that is painful and causes great discomfort. Morbidity management and disability prevention (MMDP) strategies such as surgery for hydrocele, treatment of acute... attacks and management of lymphedema are necessary for the management of the advanced stages of LF. However, very few countries including Zambia, have adequate information on the health beliefs and health seeking behavior of communities living in endemic areas towards MMDP services for LF. This study sought to explore community and health provider perspectives towards MMDP services for LF in a highly endemic region, Luangwa District, Zambia, between February and April 2019.
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About six to seven million people worldwide, mostly in Latin America, are estimated to be infected with
Trypanosoma cruzi, the parasite that causes Chagas disease (WHO data from 2021). Chagas disease is
found mainly in endemic areas of 21 Latin American countries. Chagas disease was once entirely
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confined to rural areas but in the last decades, due to population movements, most infected people live
in urban settings and the disease has spread to other continents. The burden of disease is due to its
chronic progression with people still suffering years later after initial infection.
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The World Health Organization (WHO) and the global community of countries, partners, donors, technical experts, scientists and field implementation teams continue to work towards the ultimate goal of a world free of the burden of neglected tropical diseases (NTDs).
Revised and expanded version of the Guidelines
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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Epidemiological Update
Dengue
7 February 2020
Situation summary
In the Region of the Americas, between epidemiological week (EW) 1 and EW 521 of 2019, a total of 3,139,335 cases of dengue have been reported (321.58 cases per 100,000 population), including 1,538 deaths. Of the total cases, 1,367,...353 (43.6%) were laboratory-confirmed and 28,169 (0.9%) were classified as severe dengue. The case-fatality rate was 0.049%.
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This sourcebook aims to detail why health needs to be part of urban and territorial planning and how to make this happen. It brings together two vital elements we need to build habitable cities on a habitable planet: 1) Processes to guide the development of human settlements – in this document ref...erred to as “urban and territorial planning (UTP)”; and 2) concern for human health, well-being and health equity at all levels – from local to global, and from human to planetary health.
This sourcebook identifies a comprehensive selection of existing resources and tools to support the incorporation of health into UTP, including advocacy frameworks, entry points and guidance, as well as tools and illustrative case studies. It does not provide prescriptions for specific scenarios – these should be determined by context, people and available resources.
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The Return Counselling Toolkit is a capacity-building instrument aimed at providing a harmonized and coherent approach to return counselling, based on key migrant-centred principles while protecting migrants’ rights. Mindful of the specific needs and rights pertaining to children, this additional ...module on counselling children and families further complements the first five modules of the Return Counselling Toolkit. It provides specialized guidance on how to prepare and deliver return counselling to accompanied, unaccompanied and separated children while upholding child rights and safeguards.
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FIND and Standard Diagnostics (SD) have developed a lateral flow rapid diagnostic test (RDT) to screen for
T.b. gambiense HAT that is cheap and easy to use. The tests are packed individually and are stable at 40°C for
up to 25 months; they are performed on fresh blood obtained from a finger prick..., and no instrument or electricity is required. The RDT detects host antibodies to infection in populations that are at risk, or in suspect individuals. Positive cases are subjected to further confirmatory methods to identify HAT patients.
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Localized cutaneous leishmaniasis and its evolving forms (diffuse cutaneous leishmaniasis, mucosal leishmaniasis and cutaneous leishmaniasis recidivans), together with the sequela of visceral leishmaniasis (post-kala-azar dermal leishmaniasis), account for about one million cases of dermal leishmani...ases per year worldwide. Although not lethal, the dermal leishmaniases cause chronic, disfiguring skin lesions which are an important cause of morbidity and stigma.
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Cholera is a diarrheal disease caused by the bacterium Vibrio cholera. The infection primarily spreads through contaminated water and food. Symptoms include the onset of acute diarrhea and/or vomiting, muscle cramps, and body weakness. If untreated, the infection can result in rapid dehydration and ...death within hours.
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Countries are making progress toward the global goal of 95% of people living with HIV knowing their status by 2025. However, considerable gaps remain in achieving these goals globally. Men in high HIV burden settings and men from key populations in all settings are consistently less likely to know t...heir HIV status than women. Globally, 78% of men ages 15 years and older who are living with HIV are aware of their HIV status, compared with 86% of women with HIV of these ages.
Offering HIV testing services, including HIV self-testing, at formal and informal workplaces has emerged as an effective, acceptable and feasible approach for reaching men. A 2018 World Health Organization (WHO) and International Labour Organization (ILO) policy brief provides key guiding principles for HIVST implementation at workplaces. Building on the 2018 policy brief, this brief captures early experience with HIVST implementation at workplaces and discusses emerging approaches of sustainable financing that can be adapted for HIV self-testing at workplaces.
The primary audiences for this policy brief are ministries of health and labour, national HIV programmes, employers’ organizations, workers’ organizations (labour unions), enterprises, implementing partners, including civil society organizations, and health insurance agencies.
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The objectives of the meeting were:
1. To step up the commitment of national authorities and technical and financial partners toWHO’s elimination objective for g-HAT.
2. To share achievements, challenges and views on the elimination goal among countries and implementing partners.
3. To assess t...he status of critical technical aspects to be solved in research and development of drugs and diagnostic tools, epidemiology, vector control and animal reservoirs.
4. To define the mechanisms for strengthening and organizing collaboration and coordination among stakeholders.
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This report outlines the coordination and partnership between two key ministries (Education and Public Health) in Kenya, other line ministries, the private sector, NGOs and the community in implementing the first phase of a sub-national school-based deworming exercise. The areas targeted included Co...ast, Central, Western, Nyanza
and parts of Eastern provinces, covering over 45 districts in this first phase. The SBD programme is guided by the National School Health Policy and Guidelines launched in 2009.
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Snakebite envenoming is a serious public health problem in Central America, where approximately 5,500 cases occur every year. Panama has the highest incidence and El Salvador the lowest. The majority, and most severe, cases are inflicted by the pit viper Bothrops asper (family Viperidae), locally kn...own as ‘terciopelo’, ‘barba amarilla’ or ‘equis’. About 1% of the bites are caused by coral snakes of the genus Micrurus (family Elapidae). Despite significant and successful efforts in Central America regarding snakebite envenomings in the areas of research, antivenom manufacture and quality control, training of health professionals in the diagnosis and clinical management of bites, and prevention of snakebites, much remains to be done in order to further reduce the impact of this medical condition. This essay presents seven challenges for improving the confrontation of snakebite envenoming in Central America. Overcoming these challenges demands a coordinated partnership of highly diverse stakeholders though inter-sectorial and inter-programmatic interventions.
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Human rabies remains a significant public health problem in Africa with outbreaks reported in most countries. In Nigeria–the most populous country in Africa–rabies causes a significant public health burden partly due to perennial obstacles to implementing a national prevention and control progra...m.
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