These guidelines for the National Pharmacovigilance and Medicine Information System in Rwanda have been developed to ensure that safe, efficacious and quality medicines are made available
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to all Rwandans.
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How to address the global crisis in antibiotic research and development.
The report includes a comprehensive summary and critical evaluation of recent initiatives to overcome the barriers
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to achieve sustainable access to antibiotics. As antibiotic resistance will continue to develop as long as we depend on these medicines to treat bacterial infections, a continuous supply of new effective antibiotics is needed. The report identifies five key challenges that must be solved in order to achieve sustainable access for all, and charts out options for governmental action in response to each of them.
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Toolkit
HIV Treatment and Care
This report details the challenges many women and girls with disabilities face throughout the justice process: reporting abuse to the police, obtaining appropriate medical care, having complaints investigated, navigating the court system, and gettin
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g adequate compensation.
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WHO today released its first roadmap to tackle postpartum haemorrhage (PPH) – defined as excessive bleeding after childbirth - which affects millions of women annually and is the world’s leading cause of maternal deaths.
Despite being prevent
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able and treatable, PPH results in around 70 000 deaths every year. For those who survive, it can cause disabilities and psychological trauma that last for years.
“Severe bleeding in childbirth is one of the most common causes of maternal mortality, yet it is highly preventable and treatable,” said Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General. “This new roadmap charts a path forward to a world in which more women have a safe birth and a healthy future with their families.”
The Roadmap aims to help countries address stark differences in survival outcomes from PPH, which reflect major inequities in access to essential health services. Over 85% of deaths from PPH happen in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. Risk factors include anaemia, placental abnormalities, and other complications in pregnancy such as infections and pre-eclampsia.
Many risk factors can be managed if there is quality antenatal care, including access to ultrasound, alongside effective monitoring in the hours after birth. If bleeding starts, it also needs to be detected and treated extremely quickly. Too often, however, health facilities lack necessary healthcare workers or resources, including lifesaving commodities such as oxytocin, tranexamic acid or blood for transfusions.
“Addressing postpartum haemorrhage needs a multipronged approach focusing on both prevention and response - preventing risk factors and providing immediate access to treatments when needed - alongside broader efforts to strengthen women’s rights,” said Dr Pascale Allotey, WHO Director for Sexual and Reproductive Health and HRP, the UN’s special programme on research development and training in human reproduction. “Every woman, no matter where she lives, should have access to timely, high quality maternity care, with trained health workers, essential equipment and shelves stocked with appropriate and effective commodities – this is crucial for treating postpartum bleeding and reducing maternal deaths.”
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The report shows that where people and communities living with and affected by HIV are engaged in decision-making and HIV service delivery, new infections decline and more people living with HIV gain access
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to treatment. When people have the power to choose, to know, to thrive, to demand and to work together, lives are saved, injustices are prevented and dignity is restored.
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This curriculum was designed to train newly recruited health care workers (HCW) in the basic knowledge and skills needed to improve different HIV services within the health facility including identi
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fication, linkage, retention and support. In addition to HIV basics, the training has supplementary units focused on PMTCT, psychosocial support, opportunistic infections, tuberculosis and HIV, nutrition and family planning in order to give a more well-rounded and comprehensive training of related topics.
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People with disabilities experience significant health inequalities. In Malawi, where most individuals live in low-income rural settings, many of these inequalities are exacerbated by restricted access to
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health care services. This qualitative study explores the barriers to health care access experienced by individuals with a mobility or sensory impairment, or both, living in rural villages in Dowa district, central Malawi. In addition, the impact of a chronic lung condition, alongside a mobility or sensory impairment, on health care accessibility is explored.
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This toolkit is designed to help you plan and implement a Patient Navigation program with the best chance of reducing health disparities and improving health outcomes for your patients. It contains evidence-based and experience-based examples, case
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studies, practical tools, and resources to help you:
1. Establish an evidence-based patient navigation program tailored to reduce barriers for your patients
2. Incorporate best practices to enhance current patient navigation programs or services
3. Implement a patient navigation model to address any targeted medical condition
where disparities exist
4. Hire, prepare, supervise, support and retain effective Patient Navigators
5. Navigate patients who experience health disparities
6. Evaluate patient navigation programs with the aim of continuous quality
improvement
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This resource presents "the minimum level of educational quality and access in emergencies through to recovery. The aim of the handbook is to enhan
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ce the quality of educational preparedness, response and recovery; to increase access to safe and relevant learning opportunities for all learners, regardless of their age, gender or abilities; and to ensure accountability and strong coordination in the provision of education in emergencies through to recovery...The INEE Minimum Standards are organised in five domains: Foundation standards; Access and learning environment; Teaching and learning; Teachers and other education; personnel; Education policy". Available in different languages: English, French, Arabic, Azerbajani, Bangla, Indonesia, Bosnian, Coratian, Serbian, Burmese, Chinese, Dari, Japanese, Nepali, Pashto, Portugese, Russian, Spanish, Turkish, Urdu, Vietnamese
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Over the past two decades, Afghanistan has depended on international donor support to fund essential services like health care. But this donor support has been falling for years and will likely to c
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ontinue do so—perhaps precipitously—following the announcement by United States President Joe Biden that the US will withdraw all US forces from Afghanistan by September 11, 2021. This decline in funding has already had a harmful—and life-threatening—impact on the lives of many Afghan women and girls, as it affects access to, and quality of, health care.
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The objective of Critical Considerations and Actions for Achieving Universal Access to Sexual and Reproductive Health in the Context of Universal Health Coverage through a Primary Health Care Approa
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ch is to provide guidance to WHO Member States for ensuring progress towards universal access to comprehensive sexual and reproductive health (SRH) in the context of primary health care (PHC)- and universal health coverage (UHC)-related policy and strategy reforms.
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"Some of the problems with our current drug policies stem from the fact that these policies have been largely bifurcated between two different and often contradictory approaches. One treats drug use as a crime that cannot be tolerated and should be punished; the other views addiction as a chronic re
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lapsing health or behavioral condition requiring ongoing treatment and support. Neither of these views is all encompassing—it should be recognized that there are patterns of drug use that do not result in significant harm or health problems and therefore require no intervention. The public health approach presented here takes the view that our focus should be on the harm caused by drug use and the harm caused by our policy responses to it. We have focused specifically on illicit drugs, not because they are by themselves more harmful (in fact, tobacco causes more morbidity and mortality than any illicit drug), but because it has become increasingly clear that our current policies to manage illicit drugs are failing."
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In many of Myanmar’s contested regions, healthcare services are provided through two parallel governance systems – by the government’s Ministry of Health, and by providers linked to ethnic armed organizations. Building upon efforts
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to build trust between these two actors following ceasefires signed in 2011 and 2012, the new National League for Democracy-led government offers an unprecedented opportunity to increase cooperation between these systems and to ensure health services reach Myanmar’s most vulnerable populations.
The report provides an overview of existing health service arrangements in these areas, from both the Ministry of Health and from ethnic and community-based health organizations. It then unpacks the concept of “convergence”, highlighting key opportunities and policy recommendations for both government and non-government actors.
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Charting a Path to Achieve Health Equity. The decade ahead will test the nation's nearly 4 million nurses in new and complex ways. Nurses live and work at the intersection of health, education, and communities. Nurses work in a wide array of setting
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s and practice at a range of professional levels. They are often the first and most frequent line of contact with people of all backgrounds and experiences seeking care and they represent the largest of the health care professions.
Free download available, register for free
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The WHO standard: Universal access to rapid tuberculosis diagnostics sets benchmarks to achieve universal
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access to WHO-recommended rapid diagnostics (WRDs), increase bacteriologically confirmed tuberculosis and drug resistance detection, and reduce the time to diagnosis. WHO-recommended rapid diagnostics are highly accurate, cost-effective, reduce the time to treatment initiation, and impact patient-important outcomes.
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The main goal of the National Health Plan (NHP) 2017-2021 is to extend access to a basic Essential Package of Health Services (EPHS)
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to the entire population while increasing financial protection. In order to extend service delivery to all communities, the NHP calls for all health workers (whether community-based, outreach-based or facility-based) involved in the delivery of health promotion, prevention and treatment services to be fully recognised and institutionalized within the health system to ensure efficient use of resources, necessary oversight and quality service provision (regardless of whether the health workers are voluntary or salaried). The first year Annual Operational Plan (AOP) of the NHP 2017-2021 calls for a comprehensive literature review of the situation of all Village Based Health Workers (VBHWs) in the country to inform the development of a comprehensive, institutionalized approach to community health for the country.
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This paper has been prepared to inform discussion at the conference “Beating the DRUM - Domestic Resource Use and Mobilization for accelerating progress towards SDG3,”. Many countries face critical shortfalls in domestic resource use and mobiliz
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ation (DRUM) for health, threatening to push health goals out of reach. DRUM failures weaken human capital formation, a vital input to economic growth. Countries need more and better health spending. The first step is to apply already-proven DRUM solutions, adapting them to new contexts. However, in many countries, even the best achievable DRUM performance will not be enough. New solutions are needed, including private-sector engagement and a next generation of DAH. The “Beating the DRUM” conference offers a platform for countries and partners to dialogue and build joint strategy. While each country’s situation is unique, shared lines of action are emerging.
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