This report is the first of its kind. It brings together various data sets to present the current status of hand hygiene, highlight lagging progress, and call governments and supporting agencies to action, offering numerous inspiring examples of change.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, hand hygiene ...received unprecedented attention and became a central pillar in national COVID prevention strategies. However, concern with hand hygiene should not only be as temporary public health measure in times of crisis, but as a vital everyday behaviour that contributes to health and economic resilience. Hand hygiene is a highly cost-effective investment, providing outsized health benefits for relatively little cost.
Despite efforts to promote hand hygiene, the rates of access to hand hygiene facilities remain stubbornly low. If current rates of progress continue, by the end of the SDG era in 2030, 1.9 billion people will still lack facilities to wash their hands at home.
This report presents a compelling case for investment in five key ‘accelerators’ as a pathway towards achieving hand hygiene for all – governance, financing, capacity development, data and information, and innovation. These accelerators are identified under the UN-Water SDG 6 Global Acceleration Framework.
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A practical handbook. This Health Cluster Guide (2nd edition, 2020) provides practical advice on how WHO, Health Cluster Coordinators and partners ...can work together during a humanitarian crisis to achieve the aims of reducing avoidable mortality, morbidity and disability, and restoring the delivery of and equitable access to preventive and curative health care.
It highlights key principles of humanitarian health action and how coordination and joint efforts among health and other sector actors can increase the effectiveness and efficiency of health interventions and promote better health outcomes. It draws on Inter-Agency Standing Committee and other expert guidance and includes lessons from field experience in acute and protracted crises.
The coordination principles and practice presented in Health Cluster Guide are equally valid for coordinators and members of health sector groups that seek to achieve effective health action in countries where the cluster approach has not been formally adopted.
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Public Health Situation Analysis and Interventions 10 October 2017
The strategy focuses on mobilizing and coordinating partners, experts and resources to help countries enhance surveillance of the Zika virus and disorders that could be linked to it, improve vector control, effectively communicate risks, guidance and protection measures, provide medical care to thos...e affected and fast-track research and development of vaccines, diagnostics and therapeutics
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This guide provides an overview of the major elements that must be considered before, during and after the implementation of antigen-detecting rapid diagnostic tests (Ag-RDTs) for SARS-CoV-2. This guide is complementary to policy guidance issued by the Wor...ld Health Organization (WHO). The guide may appeal to a range of audiences including Ministries of Health, donors, public and private organizations/agencies acting as implementing partners and community based and civil society organizations with experience working on health, especially organizations familiar with similar testing campaigns for other disease programmes like HIV and malaria
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Risk of spill-over of EVD to Uganda has been categorised as very high. On 28 September 2018, WHO elevated the risk at the regional level which includes Uganda from ‘high’ to ‘very high’. Uganda has a very long and largely porous border with ...the DRC. High population movements across the borders occur for various reason including for trade, social activities and services and asylum. There are cross-border markets in several border districts in Uganda and DRC that involve thousands of people crossing into and out of DRC and Uganda for trade purposes several days in a week.
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The major areas of focus for the plan will be:
- Social mobilization and community empowerment (health promotion & education for disease prevention);
- Promotion of access to safe water, good sanitation and hygiene;
- Surveillance an...d laboratory confirmation of outbreaks;
- Prompt case management and infection control;
- Complementary use of oral cholera vaccine (OCV) for cholera endemic communities; and
- Coordination and stewardship between and for all actors.
- Monitoring, supervision, evaluation and operation research to ensure continued improvement in service delivery.
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This document brings to attention key health and human rights considerations with regards to COVID-19 pandemic. It highlights the importance of integrating a human rights based approach in response to COVID-19. It provides key considerations in rela...tion to addressing stigma and discrimination, prevention of violence against women, support for vulnerable populations; quarantine and restrictive measures and shortages of supplies and equipment. It also highlights human rights obligations with regards to global cooperation to address COVID-19.
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A study conducted by the World Health Organisation Regional Office for Africa. The COVID-19 pandemic has had a significant impact on older persons ...both globally and in the African region. Although overall the region’s population is younger relative to many other world regions, the WHO AFRO region has a population just over 62 million older people and is ageing rapidly, with the number of older people expected to triple in the next three decades (Aboderin et al., 2020).
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This document summarizes current WHO guidance for public health surveillance of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in humans caused by infection with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2... (SARS-CoV-2).
New elements include:
update of contact definitions, in line with latest contact tracing guidance
update of detection strategies in line with updated version of WHO SARS-CoV-2 testing guidance
reinfection evidence standardization and surveillance: molecular, genomic and immunological evidence of reinfection
inclusion of clinical case definition of Post COVID-19 condition as defined by WHO
definition of breakthrough infection
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This is the 42nd situation report for the multi-country outbreak of mpox, which provides an update on the epidemiological situation of mpox in Africa (including countries in the WHO African Region and some countries in the ...highlight medbox">WHO Eastern Mediterranean Region), with data as of 3 November 2024.
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Developing protocols for use with refugees
and internally displaced persons
Four (04) new EVD alerts were reported from Rubkona, Nimule, and juba during week 45 (ending 13 November 2022) but only one sample was collected for laboratory confirmation which tested negative. The other three were discarded as they did not meet EVD case definition.
2nd edition. The interagency field handbook on malaria control was developed to set out effective malaria control responses in humanitarian emergencies, particularly during the acute phase when reliance on international humanitarian assistance is greatest. This second edition represents a thorough u...pdating and revision of the first edition. The structure remains similar, but includes an additional chapter on humanitarian coordination. All chapters have been revised to reflect changes in best practices, improvements in technologies, availability of new tools, and changes in WHO recommendations.
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These are integrated National Guidelines 2013 for Prevention and Management of HIV, STIs & Other Blood Borne Infections in accordance with the last guidelines of the World Health ...ute-to-highlight medbox">Organization (WHO) published in June 2013 and adapted to the Rwandan national context. It thus responds to the need by the Ministry of Health to improve skills of actors in the health sector as well as the quality of care and treatment offered in both public and private health facilities countrywide.
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