In recent years, Rwanda has been on the fast track to achieve major health improvements for its entire population. With the support of government agencies and various non-governmental partners, the Ministry of Health (MoH) has endeavored to decentralize Rwanda’s health system and bring health serv...ices closer to the people. Guided by multitude of national and international development frameworks, Rwanda’s healthcare successes include the establishment of a community health insurance scheme (mutuelle de santé), a system of cooperative-financed community health workers in every village, and interventions for researching, preventing, and treating diseases like HIV/AIDS, TB, and malaria.
As the MoH continues to design innovative means to reach and surpass its prescribed health outcome targets, it will hold as core principles the integration of service provision, the increase in healthcare capacity, and the attainment of sustainable funding sources. Rwanda is committed to achieving the Millennium Development Goals by 2015 and has declared Family Planning (FP) a national priority for poverty reduction and socioeconomic development of the country. Modern contraceptive use has more than quadrupled from 2005 to 2010, rising from 10% to 45%, but the government’s Economic Development and Poverty Reduction Strategy calls for an increase the modern contraceptive prevalence to 70% by 2016. While structural changes in health care and supply chains have led to noteworthy improvements in FP and other services, there are still many challenges that must be overcome. As such, a strategic plan is needed to coordinate FP efforts around a well-defined set of objectives and responsibilities.
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This document, Ghana’s National Newborn Health Strategy and Action Plan 2014–2018 outlines a targeted strategy for accelerating the reduction of newborn deaths in Ghana. Furthermore it provides a costed action plan with clearly marked timelines for implementation to facilitate resource mobilisat...ion, monitoring and evaluation, and scaling up of proposed newborn interventions. It is expected that all stakeholders working towards improving the health of children in Ghana will buy into this plan and collaborate towards attainment of the goals and objectives outlined here.
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The Newborn Situational Analysis reports of 2009 and 2011, as well as the “Bottleneck analysis on neonatal health” of 2013, culminated in the Nigeria launch of “Call to action on Newborn health” at the first National Newborn Health Conference in 2014. This call to action provided the framewo...rk for the development of the Nigeria Every Newborn Action
Plan (NiENAP). The NiENAP lays out a vision to end preventable stillbirths and newborn deaths by accelerating progress and scaling up evidence- based high-impact and cost effective interventions. The plan is guided by the principles of country-leadership, integration, accountability, equity, human rights, innovation and research. This blue print outlines our commitment as government and stakeholders to repositioning newborn health as we implement approaches that impact on the lives of newborns for improved health outcome.
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Regional Network for Equity in Health in east and southern Africa (EQUINET): Disussion Paper 111
The health services delivery system in Zambia is pyramid in structure, with primary healthcare (PHC) services at community level, at the base, followed by first and second level hospitals at distric...t and provincial levels, respectively, and third level (tertiary) services at national level. Notably, primary health services are free in Zambia and health service providers are either governmentowned or not-for-profit facilities.
Over the years, resource constraints have affected the quality and extent of healthcare services at all levels, requiring the mobilisation of additional resources for the sector. In doing so, prioritisation was high on the agenda of health sector reform. The EHB, therefore, prioritises interventions with the highest impact on the population, enabling policy makers to revisit priority diseases and conditions and to cost the services provided at each level of facility. Other key issues in developing the EHB in Zambia have included the need to have cost-effective services and cost per capita of services for more systematic budgeting, to rank interventions and to validate and cost the health benefit package as a whole.
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The articles in this compendium elaborate on some of the ideas shared at the symposium. Together, they provide a broad view of the dynamic interactions among physical, sexual and brain development that take place during adolescence. They highlight some of the risks to optimal development – includi...ng toxic stress, which can interfere with the formation of brain connections, and other vulnerabilities unique to the onset of puberty and independence. They also point to the opportunities for developing interventions that can build on earlier investments in child development – consolidating gains and even offsetting the effects of deficits and traumas experienced earlier in childhood.
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The World Health Organization (WHO) endorses the use of population-based prevalence surveys for estimating the prevalence of trachoma. In general, the prevalence of TF in children aged 1–9 years and the prevalence of TT in adults aged ≥ 15 years are measured at the same time in any district bein...g surveyed. This was the approach of the Global Trachoma Mapping Project, which undertook baseline surveys in > 1500 districts worldwide in order to provide the data required to start interventions where needed.
The survey design recommended by WHO is a two-stage cluster random sample survey, which uses probability proportional to size sampling to select 20–30 villages, and random, systematic or quasi-random sampling to select 25–30 households in each of those villages. In most surveys, everyone aged ≥ 1 year living in selected households is examined.
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The World Health Organization (WHO) endorses the use of population-based prevalence surveys for estimating the prevalence of trachoma. In general, the prevalence of TF in children aged 1–9 years and the prevalence of TT in adults aged ≥ 15 years are measured at the same time in any district bein...g surveyed. This was the approach of the Global Trachoma Mapping Project, which undertook baseline surveys in > 1500 districts worldwide in order to provide the data required to start interventions where needed.
The survey design recommended by WHO is a two-stage cluster random sample survey, which uses probability proportional to size sampling to select 20–30 villages, and random, systematic or quasi-random sampling to select 25–30 households in each of those villages. In most surveys, everyone aged ≥ 1 year living in selected households is examined.
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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 provides 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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The purpose of the situation assessment was to execute a situation analysis for Autism and Neurodevelopment Disorder (NDD) in Bangladesh. The situation assessment covers the following areas: a review of the scale and prevalence of NDD with trends of the disorder in the recent past in Bangladesh (see... page 17); estimation of likely disease burden in the near future (see page 27); assessment of the social response to NDD in Bangladesh (see page 67); overview of the support and services required by persons with NDD (see page 79); an inventory of service providers working with NDD in Bangladesh (see page 85); an assessment of the adequacy of the existing services and support available for addressing NDD in country (see page 97); an overview of the role and preparedness of MOHFW and other stakeholders in addressing NDD in Bangladesh (see page 108); recommendations for monitoring, supervision and reporting mechanisms for NDD services at the national level (see page 167); and recommended key activities that should be undertaken by the Health and other relevant ministries in the short and medium term (see page 167).
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The objectives of these guidelines are to provide recommendations outlining a public health approach to managing people presenting with advanced HIV disease, and to provide guidance on the timing of initiation of antiretroviral therapy (ART) for all people living with HIV.
WHO recommends that a... package of screening, prophylaxis, rapid ART initiation and intensified adherence interventions be offered to everyone living with HIV presenting with advanced disease.
WHO strongly recommends that rapid ART initiation should be offered to people living with HIV following confirmed diagnosis and clinical assessment. Rapid initiation of ART is defined as within seven days of HIV diagnosis. WHO further strongly recommends ART initiation on the same day as HIV diagnosis based on the person’s willingness and readiness to start ART immediately, unless there are clinical reasons to delay treatment.
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In 2017, the World Bank and partners created the Global Investment Framework for Nutrition as a roadmap towards achieving the World Health Assembly (WHA) nutrition targets by 2025. The framework estimates that the world needs to mobilize an annual additional investment of $7 billion per year to scal...e-up nutrition-specific interventions at the level needed to achieve the global targets. However, the world is off-track to meet the global targets. And it is unclear whether additional resources will be mobilized for life-saving and cost-effective nutrition-specific interventions, or whether donor support will be enough to meet the annual resource need established by the framework.
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This Technical Brief focuses on appraising and prioritising options for climate resilience with a view to informing water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) programme and project design.
This Technical Brief:
- provides a simple scorecard/checklist approach to use as a starting point for appr...aising and prioritising options, and as an awareness-raising activity - covers all aspects of WASH
- has a predominantly rural focus, to align with the rest of the Strategic Framework and Technical Briefs
- focuses on current and near future options over the next 15–20 years, which fits in with WASH programming timescales and development
- includes WASH examples to show how the approach can be applied.
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UNICEF CHILD ALERT May 2018
As part of a UNICEF series highlighting the challenges faced by children in current crisis situations, this Child Alert examines the situation of children affected by violent conflict in Kasai region, Democratic Republic of the Congo. The alert outlines what UNICEF a...nd its partners have achieved to date in providing humanitarian assistance to children in Kasai affected by malnutrition and lack of access to health care, safe water and education. It calls upon all parties to the conflict – and the international community – to take urgent action protecting the lives and futures of children at risk, before it is too late.
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Journal of the International AIDS Society 2017, vol. 20:e25026
In Myanmar, men who have sex with men (MSM) experience high risk of HIV infection. However, access to HIV testing and prevention services remains a challenge among this marginalized population. The objective of this study was to est...imate population prevalence and correlates of prior HIV testing among young MSM (YMSM) and informs the development of HIV testing and intervention programmes that respond to the specific needs of this population.
https://doi.org/10.1002/jia2.25026
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A two-week mission was conducted by WASH and quality UHC technical experts from WHO headquarters and supported by the WHO Ethiopia Country Office (WASH and health systems teams) in July 2016, to understand how change in WASH services and quality improvements have been implemented in Ethiopia at nati...onal, sub-national and facility levels; to document existing activities; and through the “joint lens” of quality UHC and WASH, to identify and seek to address key bottlenecks in specific areas including leadership, policy/financing, monitoring and evaluation, evidence application and facility improvements. Ethiopia has implemented a number of innovative and successful interventions.
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Myanmar is one of the world’s 22 high tuberculosis (TB) burden countries, and supporting TB control in Myanmar is a global priority. This report reflects the findings, discussions, conclusions and recommendations of the fourth international review mission of the Myanmar National TB Programme (NTP)..., which brought together international and national partners to review progress in TB control and to offer guidance on future TB control directions and efforts.
A high-quality national disease prevalence survey completed in 2010 demonstrated a TB disease burden two to three times higher than anticipated on the basis of previous surveys. In 2011 about 200 000 adults and children will have developed TB, including 20 000 HIV infected and 9000 suffering from MDR-TB, both of which will require additional care and costly treatment. TB remains among the top killers of adults, and more women die of TB than from maternal causes.
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An evaluation of WFP’s operation. Evaluation Report
The Protracted Relief and Recovery Operation (PRRO) main components include: relief assistance; food assistance for assets (FFA); nutrition support to women, children and HIV/TB patients; school feeding (SF) and capacity building. The evalua...tion scope covers the design phase and all activities up to this evaluation (January 2013-September 2016). Since the PRRO was extended through December 2017, the purpose is not as a final evaluation, but to provide results on achievements that can inform current and future operations
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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...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 disaster preparedness, the participation of women, children, older people, persons with disabilities (PWDs), and other minority groups and sectors is important because they are the most vulnerable against disasters. Inclusive disaster preparedness provides technical and logical frameworks that as...similate the most vulnerable sectors in a community and enhances their capacity against future disasters.
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2016-2018 Early implementation,
This report presents 2015 data on the consumption of systemic antibiotics from 65 countries and areas, contributing to our understanding of how antibiotics are used in these countries. In addition, the report documents early efforts of the World Health Organization (...WHO) and participating countries to monitor antimicrobial consumption, describes the WHO global methodology for data collection, and highlights the challenges and future steps in monitoring antimicrobial consumption.
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