A practical guide for hospital administrators, health disaster coordinators, health facility designers, engineers and maintenance staff to achieve Smart Health Facilities by conserving resources, cu...tting costs, increasing efficiency in operations and reducing carbon emissions
more
UN, international agencies and experts released a groundbreaking report demanding immediate, coordinated and ambitious action to avert a potentially disastrous drug-resistance crisis.
If no action... is taken - warns the UN Ad hoc Interagency Coordinating Group on Antimicrobial Resistance who released the report – drug-resistant diseases could cause 10 million deaths each year by 2050 and damage to the economy as catastrophic as the 2008-2009 global financial crisis. By 2030, antimicrobial resistance could force up to 24 million people into extreme poverty.
more
The WHO SAGE values framework for the allocation and prioritization of COVID-19 vaccination is intended to offer guidance on the prioritization of groups ...for vaccination when vaccine supply is limited. It provides a values foundation for the objectives of COVID-19 vaccination programmes and links those to target groups for vaccination. This information is valuable to countries and globally while specific policies will be developed once vaccines become available.
This document it available in Arabic, Chinese English, French, Portugese and Russian,
more
Background paper 11
The Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response
May 2021
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.
more
Antimicrobial Resistance Surveillance and Research Network | This manual describes well accepted methods to carry out drug susceptibility testing on important gram positive and gram negative clinica...lly relevant bacteria. Methods of specimen collection, transport, culture, anti-microbial drug susceptibility testing (common, special phenotypic and
molecular techniques) as well as quality control and quality assurance have been described in a concise manner.
more
The European Resuscitation Council Guidelines for Resuscitation provide specific instructions for how resuscitation should be practiced and take in...to account ease of teaching and learning, as well as the science. They were developed by Europeans and have been specifically written with European practice in mind.
more
2nd edition. This Permagarden Technical Manual is a resource for agriculture project staff implementing home garden projects with farmers. The manual explains how the permagarden method addresses soil health, water management ...to-highlight medbox">and crop protection to create a year-round productive home garden. It includes an explanation of the purpose and reasoning behind the method, as well as instructions on how to implement the different practices
more
"Achieving, maintaining and improving accuracy, timeliness and reliability are major challenges for health laboratories. Countries worldwide commit...ted themselves to build national capacities for the detection of, and response to, public health events of international concern when they decided to engage in the International Health Regulations implementation process. Only sound management of quality in health laboratories will enable countries to produce test results that the international community will trust in cases of international emergency. This handbook is intended to provide a comprehensive reference on Laboratory Quality Management System for all stakeholders in health laboratory processes, from management, to administration, to bench-work laboratorians. This handbook covers topics that are essential for quality management of a public health or clinical laboratory. They are based on both ISO 15189 and CLSI GP26-A3 documents"--Page 7.
more
Global Health Science and Practice February 2022, https://doi.org/10.9745/GHSP-D-21-00237
Key Findings: Exposure to vaccination information from faith leaders and health facilities was associa...ted with increased likelihood of vaccination uptake. The significant association between exposure to a greater number of immunization information sources and increased likelihood of vaccination uptake reinforces the need for multiple sources to provide consistent and accurate immunization information to facilitate positive vaccination behavior.
Key Implications: Social and behavior change communication interventions may optimize the promotion of immunization services through multiple information sources such as health facilities and community-based assets including faith leaders and lay community health workers. Religion and faith play an important role in how people understand health and make health decisions. In Sierra Leone and other similar settings, interventions to improve uptake of immunization services may be enhanced by proactively engaging faith leaders.
more
The Health Sector Policy gives general orientations for the sector which are further developed in the various sub-sector policies guiding key health programs and departments. All health sub-sector p...olicies will be updated in line with this new policy. The Health Sector Policy is the basis of national health planning and the first point of reference for all actors working in the health sector. The overall aim of this policy is to ensure universal accessibility (in geographical and financial terms) of equitable and affordable quality health services (preventative, curative, rehabilitative and promotional services) for all Rwandans. It sets the health sector’s objectives, identifies the priority health interventions for meeting these objectives, outlines the role of each level in the health system, and provides guidelines for improved planning and evaluation of activities in the health sector. A companion Health Sector Strategic Plan (HSSP) elaborates the strategic directions defined in the Health Sector Policy in order to support and achieve the implementation of the policy, and more detailed annual operational plans describe the activities under each strategy.
more
Coronavirus Disease-19 (COVID-19) was declared a global pandemic on 11 March 2020, and Malawi declared its first case on 2 April. As of 30 April, there were 36 confirmed positive cases of COVID-19 <...span class="attribute-to-highlight medbox">and 3 deaths. A State of Disaster was declared by President Arthur Peter Mutharika on 20 March and a 21-day lockdown was implemented from 18 April to 9 May. The lockdown measures include: bans on public gatherings; closure of schools; and bans on international flights and cross-border passenger buses.
more
One health Response to AMR Containment.
In a significant move for the public health sector, Kerala has become the first state in India to launch an action plan to combat the growing cases of antimicrobial immunity, arising primarily from irrational... use of medicines and excessive antibiotics used in livestock and poultry.
more
The report reflects on the trends, achievements and challenges in global health over the past decade during which Dr Margaret Chan has been Director-General of WHO. It discusses the role of WHO in dealing with such issues as the rise of noncommunica...ble diseases, leaps in life expectancy, and emerging threats like climate change and antimicrobial resistance.
more
State of Health in the EU Cycle.
With the coronavirus (COVID-19) once again spreading rapidly, and the re-introduction of containment measures to flatten the curve of the epidemic, it is crucial for...> policymakers to plan effective strategies to re-open their economies to avoid further re-confinements. This should include much more effective testing, tracing and isolation policies that people can easily follow, as well as improved social distancing measures
more
This guide is intended to support national governments developing their national deployment and vaccination plans (NDVPs) for COVID-19 vaccines by outlining the roles, needs ...o-highlight medbox">and opportunities for community health workers (CHWs) to contribute. This note builds on and is structured to align with the Guidance on developing a national deployment and vaccination plan for COVID-19 vaccines. By providing CHW-relevant considerations for the VIRAT Tool, this document aims to support national governments in developing robust NDVPs for introducing COVID-19 vaccine(s) that leverage all the community-based deployment, implementation and monitoring tools at their disposal.
more
In response to a call by the United Nations Secretary-General and the Governments of Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, an international team conducted an Ebola Recovery Assessment.The aim was to con...tribute towards laying the foundation for short-, medium- and long-term recovery while the medical emergency response continues to tackle the epidemic.
This summary report is based on a full report as well as three detailed reports submitted to each of the three governments as contributions to their national recovery planning processes.
more
An approach to emergency situations. Relief workers face rapidly changing and complex environments, new disease patterns, enormous humanitarian needs and<.../span> relatively limited resources. The authors of this book use their experience in the area to produce an operational manual of the issues involved in refugee health programs. This book is aimed at professionals involved in public health assistance to refugees and displaced persons. It deals with a variety of specific refugee health issues at the decisional level, and discusses the priorities of intervention during the different phases of a refugee crisis, from emergency to repatriation.
more
High salt consumption is an important determinant of high blood pressure and reducing it would improve health outcomes by lowering cardiovascular disease ...and therefore death rates. Reducing salt intake has been identified as one of the most effective public health measures and is one of the leading targets at global, regional and national levels to reduce the burden of noncommunicable diseases. The purpose of the Dietary Salt Intake Survey in the Republic of Moldova was to establish current baseline average consumption of salt (sodium), potassium and iodine through 24-hour urinary excretion testing among a random sample of the adult population (aged 18–69 years), and to assess the knowledge, attitudes, practices and behaviour around dietary salt in order to enable more efficient planning and the implementation of an effective salt-reduction strategy in the Republic of Moldova.
more
Access to safe blood and blood products is recognized as one of the key requirements for delivery of modern health care in the journey towards health for<.../span> all. The foundation of safe and sustainable blood supplies depends on the collection of blood from voluntary non-remunerated and low-risk donors. Data from the WHO Global Database for Blood Safety (GDBS) brings out several inadequacies related to the supply and safety of blood and blood products. These inadequacies include a number of variations in safe blood practices across the world, including the quantity of blood donated (voluntary and replacement types), quality and adequate testing of the donated blood (immunohaematology [IH] and transfusion-transmitted infections [TTIs]), rational use of blood and blood components such as appropriate patient blood management protocols. These variations are very high in countries of the South-East Asian Region and most of them are either low- or middle-income countries (LMICs).
more