This report includes six case studies from 12 individuals with lived experience of diverse health conditions. These case studies explore the topics of power dynamics and power reorientation towards individuals with lived experience; informed decision-making and health literacy; community engagement ...across broader health networks and health systems; lived experience as evidence and expertise; exclusion and the importance of involving groups that are marginalized; and advocacy and human rights.
It is the first 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).
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This regional summary draws on the WHO Global oral health status report (2), published in 2022, which provides a comprehensive overview of the global oral disease burden, the global health importance of oral health and the impact of oral diseases over the life course.
The summary focuses on the ...oral health status in the Western Pacific Region and is split into four sections: (a) oral diseases are global and regional health problems; (b) the burden of the main oral diseases; (c) key challenges and opportunities towards oral health for all in the Western Pacific Region; and (d) road map towards UHC for oral health 2030. This regional summary is based on the 27 Member States in the Region.
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This annual report gives an overview of WHO lesotho Country office's undertakings and achievements in the context of an extraordinary health emergency. As we walk another mile this year, may we embrace all lessonst leanred in the previous year, learn from what did not work so well and take on new op...portunities in championing health in the country.
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The Country Cooperation Strategy is the World Health Organization’s corporate framework developed in response to a country’s needs and priorities. The 2022–2025 CCS is the fourth for WHO in Sierra Leone. It is a medium-term strategic document that defines a broad framework for WHO’s work, at... all levels, with the Government of Sierra Leone and all health partners for the next four years. This document is guided by the country’s major policy and strategy documents including the 2020 National Health and Sanitation Policy (NHSP); the 2021–2025 National Health Sector Strategic Plan (NHSSP); and the 2019–2023 National Medium-term Development Plan (NMTDP). The current CCS also reflects the broad priorities of WHO as outlined in its Thirteenth General Programme of Work (2019–2023, extended to 2025) with a focus on improving access to universal health coverage, protecting people from health emergencies, and improving people’s health and well-being. The CCS priorities are also in alignment with the United Nations Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework (UNSDCF) in Sierra Leone and will contribute to attaining the country's SDG targets
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This report is the annual global monitoring report documenting progress towards Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 2 targets 2.1 and 2.2. This year’s report explores the links between urbanization and changing food systems and how these changes are impacting the availability, affordability and des...irability of healthy diets, food security and malnutrition in all its forms. It shows that understanding the ways in which urbanization is shaping food systems will require using a rural-urban continuum lens. By mapping the interlinkages across the rural-urban continuum, governments can identify challenges created by urbanization and suitable policies, technologies, investments and governance mechanisms to help address them.
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The knowledge guide is the second publication in the Self-care competency framework to support health and care workers.
This describes how health and care workers can apply each of the 10 competency standards in their work, detailing the necessary knowledge, skills and attitudes that underpin the... required behaviours.
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The ninth WHO report on the global tobacco epidemic tracks the progress made by countries in tobacco control since 2008 and, marks 15 years since the introduction of the MPOWER technical package which is designed to help countries implement the demand-reduction measures of the WHO Framework Conventi...on on Tobacco Control. The report shows that many countries continue to make progress in the fight against tobacco, but efforts must be accelerated to protect people from the harms of tobacco and second-hand smoke.
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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 Approach is to provide guidance to WHO Member States for ensuring progress towards universal access to compr...ehensive 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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The present information document supplements the WHO audited financial statements for 2018. It contains information on WHO's voluntary contributions by fund and by contributor in the year 2018.
We combine data on Chinese development projects with data from Demographic and Health Surveys to study the impact of Chinese aid on household welfare in sub-Saharan Africa. We use a novel methodology to test the effect of Chinese aid on three important development outcomes: education, health, and nu...trition. For each outcome, we use difference-in-difference estimations to compare household areas near Chinese project sites to control areas located farther away, before and after receiving Chinese aid. This empirical strategy rules out many confounding factors that can bias measuring the impact of Chinese aid on our outcome variables. First, we find that Chinese projects significantly improve education and child mortality in treatment areas, but do not significantly affect nutrition. Second, social sector projects have a larger effect on outcomes than economic projects. Third, we do not find significant effects for projects that ended more than five years before the post-treatment survey wave. Our results are robust to a host of robustness checks.
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Ebola disease and Marburg disease outbreaks continue to occur in Africa, with increased frequency. In addition to resulting in high mortality and morbidity, the outbreaks generate fear and mistrust about the response activities within the communities affected.
Infection prevention and control (IP...C) is a key pillar in the outbreak response; adherence to IPC practices can prevent and control transmission of infections to health and care workers, patients and their family members.
During the 2014-2016 West African Ebola disease outbreak, there was an urgent need for rapid IPC guidance to help support ministries of health, health-care providers and non-governmental organizations (NGOs). In response, WHO produced several documents related to the outbreak based on expert opinion, including IPC-specific documents and documents on clinical management that also referenced key IPC principles and practices. Since that time, many practices in the field have become institutionalized.
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It is widely understood that the food insecurity crisis in the Sahel and the Horn of Africa is one of the world’s fastest growing and most neglected crises. It lacks sufficient global focus, resources and urgency. As in so many crises, women and girls are disproportionately affected and shoulder t...he consequences of protracted neglect, with unconscionable impacts on their safety, life chances and agency.
Gaining a holistic view of the gendered drivers, risks and impacts of food insecurity in the Sahel and the Horn of Africa is difficult. This is due to a lack of data and prioritization, and the large geographical and socioeconomic terrain covered by both regions. However, what we do know about this crisis is more than enough to urgently address the needs of women and girls.
An OCHA discussion paper on this topic (which will be published imminently, and from which this policy brief is drawn) found that there is:
A strong risk of profound regression in gender equality gains made to date in the countries of concern, including on education, sexual and reproductive health, and the economic independence of women and girls (with knock-on effects on broader humanitarian and development outcomes).
An increasing challenge to reverse what must be recognized as a protracted and growing gender-based violence (GBV) emergency in the Sahel and the Horn of Africa.
The food insecurity crisis in the Sahel and the Horn of Africa is protracted, multidimensional and highly gendered, with spiralling impacts on gender equality and food security outcomes. It is driven by interwoven and overlapping factors, including climate change, political instability, conflict, socioeconomic conditions, migration and displacement and, more recently, COVID-19 and the war in Ukraine. Interlinked with these factors are gendered structural drivers of food insecurity, including deeply entrenched gender inequalities and harmful social norms. Gendered risks and impacts of food insecurity include alarming limitations on access to education, sexual and reproductive health rights, women’s agency and participation, and dramatic increases in different existing forms of GBV and the emergence of new ones. Recognition of such gendered dimensions of food insecurity and of the need for a multisectoral approach in the response is key to addressing the crisis, along-side sustained commitment and adequate allocation of resources. This policy brief draws out key findings from the OCHA discussion paper on this topic, which includes a desk review of studies, assessments and reports, and interviews with local women’s organizations on the front lines of the food insecurity crisis in communities across both regions.
Below are the most pressing gendered drivers, risks and impacts of food insecurity (not in order of priority), as well as key gaps in the current humanitarian response to food insecurity, and recommendations to take forward.
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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 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).
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Cholera is an acute gastrointestinal infection caused by the bacterium Vibrio Cholerae serogroup O1 or O139, and is often linked to unsafe drinking water, lack of proper sanitation and personal hygiene. It adversely affects mostly the poor and vulnerable populations in countries, which are already d...eprived of proper health facilities and conducive environmental conditions. The disease spreads through oro-fecal transmission by the ingestion of contaminated food or water or by person-to-person contact. It has a short incubation period of 2 hours to 5 days and the number of affected cases can rapidly increase across large regions. Cholera is a significant threat to global public health leading to an estimated 3-5 million cases per year worldwide, with an annual toll of 100,000 deaths. The disease was first reported in 1817 from the Ganges Delta of India and since then the ongoing 7th pandemic has emerged from Indonesia, reached Africa in 1970 and Somalia happens to be one of the early affected countries. Over the past few decades,
Somalia has witnessed the occurrence of repeated AWD/Cholera disease outbreaks that have caused high morbidity and mortality across the country.
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WHO has published the first-ever guidance on the clinical management of diphtheria. The only previously available guidance was an operational protocol. The new guidance followed the rigorous process for developing guidance at WHO.
It addresses the use of Diphtheria Antitoxin (DAT) in the treatmen...t of diphtheria. There is a worldwide shortage of DAT and evidence based recommendations on the use of DAT were requested by many Member States.
The guidance also includes new recommendations on antibiotics. In patients with suspected or confirmed diphtheria, WHO recommends using macrolide antibiotics (azithromycin, erythromycin) rather than penicillin antibiotics.
This clinical practice guideline has been rapidly developed recognizing the global increase in diphtheria outbreaks. Outbreaks of diphtheria in Nigeria, Guinea and neighbouring countries in 2023 have highlighted the urgent need for evidence-based clinical practice guidelines for the treatment of diphtheria. Given the sporadic nature of outbreaks, many clinicians in the affected regions have never managed acute diphtheria and its related complications. Diphtheria remains a neglected disease and vaccination is the top priority. At the same time, for patients with diphtheria, access to antibiotics, DAT and supportive care can be lifesaving.
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