An interregional meeting on leishmaniasis among neighbouring endemic
countries in the Eastern Mediterranean, African and European regions was organized by the
...
World Health Organization (WHO) Regional Office for the Eastern
Mediterranean in Amman, Jordan, from 23 to 25 September 2018. The meeting was attended by representatives from the health ministries of Albania, Georgia, Greece, Iran (Islamic Republic of), Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Syrian Arab Republic and Tunisia. Representatives from Afghanistan, Algeria and Libya were unable to attend. The Secretariat comprised staff from WHO headquarters, WHO regional offices in the Eastern Mediterranean, Africa and Europe, WHO country offices in Iraq, Pakistan, Syrian Arab Republic and Yemen, and WHO temporary advisors from Spain and Tunisia.
more
The World Health Organization (WHO) is releasing the second edition of its Global Accelerated Ac
...
tion for the Health of Adolescents (AA-HA!) guidance. The document aims to equip governments to respond to the health and well-being challenges, opportunities and needs of adolescents.
The guidance provides the latest available data on adolescent health and well-being. It also outlines an updated list of core indicators that data should be collected on. Globally, road injury was the top cause of death for adolescent males in 2019. Among female adolescents, the leading causes of death were diarrhoeal diseases among the younger group (10-14 years) and tuberculosis (TB) in the older group (15-19 years).
Over the last 20 years, mortality rates have declined among adolescents globally, with the largest decline in older (15–19 years) adolescent girls. For non-fatal diseases, the burden has not improved over the past two decades, with the main causes of ill health in this category being: mental health conditions (depressive and anxiety disorders, childhood behavioural disorders), iron deficiency anaemia, skin diseases and migraine.
Adolescent well-being depends on a range of factors, including healthy food, education, life skills and employability, connectedness, feeling valued by society, safe and supportive environments, resilience, and the freedom to make choices. To take an appropriately holistic approach, the guidance outlines how to take crosscutting action to support adolescent health and well-being, with mutually reinforcing interventions across sectors, such as health, education, social protection, and telecommunications. Targeted efforts are also required to engage adolescents, as they trust health systems less than adults do and are especially vulnerable to modern-day trends, like online bullying and gaming.
more
The Regional Action Framework for Noncommunicable Disease Prevention and Control provides a unified vision of objectives and recommended actions to combat the noncommunicable disease (NCD) epi
...
demic in the Western Pacific Region. Implementation should be supported by cross-sectoral coordination, sustainable financing, evidence-based policy, and community engagement, tailored to each Member State’s unique context. In doing so, Member States are encouraged to transform a disease treatment-centered “sick system” into a “health system” in which a population’s health and well-being enable socioeconomic development.
more
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 responses. 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.
more
The Quality Criteria for Health National Adaptation Plans (HNAPs) presents examples of good practice in HNAP development to assist countries in developing a comprehensive, feasible and implementable
...
plan. The criteria are also intended to guide countries in setting the foundation for a long-term iterative HNAP process. The proposed criteria are not prescriptive and should be adapted to dynamic country contexts, uncertain and changing climatic conditions, and new knowledge and technologies.
9 February 2021
more
This action plan is intended for senior-level decision-makers in ministries of health, malaria
programme managers, entomologists, and epidemiologists working on malaria and other vectorborne diseas
...
es programmes. It is also intended for decision-makers and technical and advocacy
staff at other organizations and stakeholders involved in public health, malaria control and
elimination, and urban and rural development.
more
This publication outlines public health aspects of alcohol use and harm in WHO South East Asia Region Countries. It summarizes Global
...
Regional and country specific data and also discusses aspects of alcohol control that are important in the context of the Region. The possible future trend of alcohol use in the Region is also analysed and current and future barriers to effective alcohol control in countries of the Region are discussed.
more
This report includes analysis from informal regional consultations in the African Region, the Caribbean and North America, Latin America, South-East Asia
...
Region, European Region, Eastern Mediterranean Region, alongside three forums in the Western Pacific Region. It analyses the overarching similarities, regional nuances and priorities raised across the six WHO regions for the meaningful engagement of individuals with lived experience.
It is the second publication in the WHO Intention to action series, which aims to enhance the limited evidence base on the impact of meaningful engagement and address the lack of standardized approaches on how to operationalise meaningful engagement. The Intention to action series aims to do this by providing a platform from which individuals with lived experience, and organizational and institutional champions, can share solutions, challenges and promising practices related to this cross-cutting agenda. The Intention to action series also aims to provide powerful narratives, inspiration and evidence towards the Fourth United Nations High Level Meeting on NCDs in 2025 and achieving the 2030 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
more
Guide for coordinators and data collectors - The WHO Operational Package for Assessing, Monitoring and Evaluating Country Pharmaceutical Situations
...
is intended as a useful tool for researchers, policy-makers, planners and others who need to use standardized measurement tools to gather data and other information. In addition, the operational package can be used by international agencies and donors, by professional groups and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs).
more
This compendium collates current tools and resources on quality improvement developed by the WHO Service Delivery and Safety Department and provides examples of how the tools and resources have been applied in country settings. The target audience
...
for this document are ministries of health, facility quality improvement teams, researchers and development agencies. WHO technical programmes, regional and country offices can also use the document in their technical cooperation work with the identified audience. Those working to improve the quality of health service delivery can also make good use of this resource
more
The WHO Global strategy on human resources for health: workforce 2030 encourages development partners and global
...
health initiatives to leverage their support to health systems in countries to sustainably strengthen the health workforce. To assess the impact of these investments, a methodology was developed and pilot tested by WHO.
The impact assessment tool (consisting of an MS Excel calculator with two subsets) supports users to:
• assess and quantify the health impact of HRH investments made in the context of HIV, tuberculosis (TB) and malaria programmes through their modelled effect on health service coverage of these three diseases; and
• provide aggregate indicative estimates of the range of health workers required to attain high coverage of selected health services.
more
Building on the 2021 Interim guidance, this second version and update, incorporates the lessons and feedback from the hepatitis pilots that successfully demonstrated the feasibility of measuring hepatitis B and C impact targets to demonstrate elimination, whilst highlighting challenges caused by hig
...
h disease burden in some countries, as well as delays in reaching mortality targets due to the long natural history of disease progression to liver cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma.
The path to elimination provides a framework with 3 levels of achievements for which WHO certification is available. Each stepwise progression from bronze to silver to gold tiers will promote an iterative expansion of prevention, diagnosis and treatment services for viral hepatitis services and strengthen measurement systems to support attainment of the 2030 elimination goals.
This updated version also includes changes, clarifications and new guidance on alternative measurement approaches for country validation of elimination. Through the validation process, WHO and partners continue to provide country support for strengthening health system capacity and patient-centred services that respect and protect the human rights of people living with viral hepatitis and ensures meaningful engagement of communities in the national, regional and global viral hepatitis response.
more
The World Health Organization (WHO) Global Status Report on Noncommunicable Diseases 2010 projec
...
ts that noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) will be responsible for over 44 million deaths during the next decade, representing an increase of about 15% since 2010. Most of these deaths will occur in the WHO regions of Africa, South-East Asia and the Eastern Mediterranean. In the African Region alone, NCDs will cause around 3.9 million deaths by 2020.
more
The Knowledge Guide provides guidance on how health workers can apply the Standards to their own practice. For each of the nine competencies and their specific behaviours in the Standards, the Knowl
...
edge Guide examines in detail how a health worker's knowledge, skills and attitudes can reach the stated benchmark for providing people-centred health services to refugees and migrants. The Knowledge Guide also details the learning outcomes that reflect the behaviours that a health worker will demonstrate once they have achieved the Competency Standards.
The Knowledge Guide is designed for educators and health workers to assist in designing or integrating learning content to enable attainment of the identified knowledge, skills and attitudes.
more
An in-depth analysis of the health-seeking behaviour of patients and health system response in seven countries of the Eastern
...
Mediterranean Region
more