The WHO country office for Ghana, began the year 2019 with a 4-day staff retreat at the Busua Beach Resort in the Western Region from 04 to 08 March 2019. The theme for the retreat was ‘Impacting the Health ...ox">and Lives of the people of Ghana through the Triple Billion Goal”. The staff outlined priorities and strategies to strengthen WHO’s contribution to the national health agenda during the year. Working in collaboration with the Ministry of Health/Ghana Health Service and other allied health institutions and stakeholders, the WHO country office, provided support aimed at achieving its
mission which is attaining the highest level of health by the people in the country though its six operational areas which are (i) Communicable Diseases (ii) Non-Communicable Diseases, (iii) Promoting Health through the Life Course (iv), Health Systems, (v) Preparedness, Surveillance and Response (vi) Corporate services and enabling functions.
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Prepared by the Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response for the WHO Executive Board, January 2021
“The world was not as prepared as it should have been, and it must do better,... concludes a WHO panel reviewing the pandemic response "
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As the Americas undergo profound demographic change and there are more persons aged 65 years or older than children younger than 5 years, it is crucial to recognize that national immunization programs must be redesigned to ensure comprehensive prote...ction for individuals across the lifespan. By adopting a life course approach (LCA) to immunization, vaccination programs can be tailored to close immunity gaps at different stages of life. The life course approach foresees the establishment of multiple strategies to reduce missed opportunities for vaccination according to age group. This technical document explains the key concepts of the LCA with a focus on immunization by vaccination, as well as the underlying biological mechanisms that require the application different vaccines at different life stages according to changes to the immune system and in the epidemiological situation of a community.
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This report provides an overview of the operations and activities of the WHO Country Office in Ukraine in 2023. Despite the acute health impacts of the war in Ukraine, the Country Office continued i...ts work according to its core mandate. WHO supported the Government of Ukraine in managing the health emergency and pursued existing priorities set out in WHO’s Thirteenth General Programme of Work 2019–2023, the European Programme of Work 2020–2025, and the Biennial Collaborative Agreement 2022–2023 signed with the Government of Ukraine. The report presents the achievements of the WHO Country Office in Ukraine in 2023 in the context of the war’s impact on the lives, health, and well-being of Ukrainians.
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Over the 20 years that followed, this unique partnership has invested more than US$53 billion, saving 44 million lives and reducing the combined death rate from the three diseases by more than half in the countries in which the ...e-to-highlight medbox">Global Fund invests.
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The World Health Organization is issuing a "roadmap" to guide and coordinate the international response to the outbreak of Ebola virus disease in West Africa.
The aim is to stop ongoing Ebola tran...smission worldwide within 6–9 months, while rapidly managing the consequences of any further international spread. It also recognizes the need to address, in parallel, the outbreak’s broader socioeconomic impact.
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Nurses are key players in health promotion and disease prevention and the backbone of health car...e systems worldwide. Nurses work on the front lines of disease prevention, 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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The new WHO guidelines provide recommended steps for safe phlebotomy and reiterate accepted principles for drawing, collecting blood and transporting blood to laboratories/blood banks.
This manual is designed primarily to assist managers of national malaria programmes and national reference laboratory responsible for quality assurance of malaria microscopy control. The information is also applicable to non-governmental organizatio...ns and funding agencies investing in quality management systems for malaria microscopy.
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Policy Brief.
Our understanding of how to diagnose and manage Long COVID is still evolving but the condition can be very debilitating. It is associated with a range of overlapping symptoms including generalized chest ...ight medbox">and muscle pain, fatigue, shortness of breath, and cognitive dysfunction, and the mechanisms involved affect multiple system and include persisting inflammation, thrombosis, and autoimmunity. It can affect anyone, but women and health care workers seem to be at greater risk.
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4th edition. A manual for clinics, community health centers and district hospitals
The Blueprint is intended to guide programming, resource allocation, and commitments to achieve the national objective of a contraceptive prevalence rate (CPR) of 36 percent by 2018.
To implement the set of recommendations on the marketing of foods and non-alcoholic beverages to children
With the growing obesity crisis among children, WHO and other public ...bute-to-highlight medbox">health advocates and consumer groups have called for restrictions on advertising of ‘unhealthy foods’ high in salt, sugar and fat to children. Each day, children in the South East Asia Region are exposed to large volume of marketing of unhealthy foods that may influence children’s food preferences and consumption patterns and is associated with childhood overweight and obesity.
The definition of ‘unhealthy’ is debatable, and therefore, an objective method of describing foods as healthy or unhealthy is needed. A nutrient profile model does just that and therefore, a nutrition profile model for South East Asia was developed. The model is consistent with international guidance for preventing chronic disease and is a simple system with clear cut-offs for defining which foods are not suitable for advertising to children.
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This toolkit for integrated vector management (IVM) is designed to help national and regional programme managers coordinate across sectors to design and run large IVM programmes.
The toolkit pr...ovides the technical detail required to plan, implement, monitor and evaluate an IVM approach. IVM can be used when the aim is to control or eliminate vector-borne diseases and can also contribute to insecticide resistance management. This toolkit provides information on where vector-borne diseases are endemic and what interventions should be used, presenting case studies on IVM as well as relevant guidance documents for reference.
The diseases that are the focus of this toolkit are malaria, lymphatic filariasis, dengue, leishmaniasis, onchocerciasis, human African trypanosomiasis and schistosomiasis. It also includes information on other viral diseases (Rift Valley fever, West Nile fever, Chikungunya, yellow fever) and trachoma. If other vector-borne diseases appear in a country or area, vector control with an IVM approach should be adopted, as per national priorities.
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With the goal of ending viral hepatitis as a public health threat by 2030, the Regional Action Plan will provide an actionable framework for implementing evidence-based interventions at scale. It will be informed through strategic monitoring of the ...response, that must be equitable and sustainable and allow for innovations for acceleration and reaching out to all in need with health services. A major reduction in prices of newer drugs to potentially cure hepatitis C offers an added opportunity to work towards its elimination.
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Accessed: 21.03.2019
mhGAP Training Manual for the mhGAP Intervention Guide for mental, neurological and substance use disorders in non-specialized health settings – version 2.0 (for field test...ing)
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A WHO guide to inform & harmonize national & international pandemic preparedness and response
The main updates from the 2013 interim guidance are:
Alignment with other relevant United Nations policies for crisis ...light medbox">and emergency management, and
Inclusion of the significant development in recent years of the strategies for pandemic vaccine response during the start of a pandemic.
The guide is available in English, Arabic, Chinese, French, Spanish and Russian
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Supporting the food and agriculture sectors in implementing the Global Action Plan on Antimicrobial Resistance to minimize the impact of antimicrobial resistance
This manual summarizes key issues related to the safety of NTD medicines and their administration, with a focus on essential medicines used in mass drug administration (MDA), also called preventive chemotherapy. It can be used as a standalone refere...nce manual, but is intended to be used in conjunction with the accompanying training modules, which provide practical instruction, and the aide-mémoires. Versions of the aide-mémoires and training modules are available respectively for both (i) programme managers and district-level health officials and (ii) community drug distributors and community health workers
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This publication is a companion document to the NDVP National Deployment and Vaccination Plans guidance, which provides a framework for countries to develop their national strategies. As countries face challenges with erratic vaccine supplies, use ...of multiple vaccine products with different characteristics, and the size of populations and their diversity, this document provides operational guidance and information to support planners and immunization programme managers at the national and sub-national levels on microplanning for COVID-19 vaccination implementation.
This Guide is available in English, French, Arabic, chinese, Portuguese, Spanish, Russian
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