With about 24 million of Yemen’s 30 million people in need of some form of assistance, the United Nations calls Yemen the world’s worst humanitarian crisis. Cholera and other disease outbreaks are common, malnutrition is widespread, water is scarce, and the healthcare system is crumbling, with o...nly half of the country’s 5,000 or so health facilities fully operational and with massive medical supply and staff shortages. In August 2020, the UN warned the country was again on the brink of full-scale famine.
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his document, a first of its kind, clearly sets out the standards for rehabilitation and provides guidance on building or strengthening the capacity of EMTs in this area.The importance of early rehabilitation for functional outcomes is well documented. Rehabilitation needs can pe...rsist far beyond the departure of EMTs; therefore, close, supportive collaboration must be established with local services. Emergency response presents an opportunity to rebuild devastated health systems and build local rehabilitation capacity. This document emphasizes the importance of aligning practices to the local context and maximizing opportunities for training and mentorship. The minimum standards and recommendations described will result in faster access of patients to rehabilitation services and equipment and a better transition between EMTs and local health facilities.
Available in English, German, Arabic, Chinese
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August 2020.
Essential diagnostic products areconsidered an integral part of UHC, they are an indispensable element for delivery ofservices andare also a requirement for qualitycare. Despite this realization, a review of the UHC pilot in September 2019 es...tablished that whereas the Kenya Medical Supplies Authority (KEMSA) was able to fill up to 80% of pharmaceutical items, the order fill rate for diagnostic products was less than 50 percent for level 2 and 3 facilities and as low as 30 percent for level 4 and 5 facilities.
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August 2020.
In December 2018, the President launched the UHC pilot covering four strategically selected counties-Isiolo, Kisumu, Machakos and Nyeri. It isplanned that by the year 2022, all persons in Kenya will be able to use the essential services they need for their health... and wellbeing through a single unified benefit package, without the risk of financial catastrophe. Essential health products are considered an integral part of UHC andare an indispensable element for delivery ofservices andare also a requirement for qualitycare. Despite this realization, a review of the UHC pilot in September 2019 established that whereas the Kenya Medical Supplies Authority (KEMSA) was able to fill up to 80% of pharmaceutical items, the order fill rate for medical supplies was less than 50%for level 2 and 3 facilities and as low as 30%for level 4 and 5 facilities.
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Licensed pharmaceutical products (marketing authorization) should be manufactured only by licensed manufacturers (holders of a manufacturing authorization) whose activities are regularly inspected by competent national authorities. This guide to GMP shall be used as a standard to justify GMP status,... which constitutes one of the elements of the WHO Certification Scheme on the quality of pharmaceutical products moving in international commerce, through the assessment of applications for manufacturing authorizations and as a basis for the inspection of manufacturing facilities. It may also be used as training material for government medicines inspectors, as well as for production, QC and QA personnel in the industry
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The WHO Guidance on community mental health services: Promoting person-centred and rights-based approaches document is part of the WHO Guidance and technical packages on community mental health services set of publications. It provides a detailed description of person-centred and human rights-based ...approaches in mental health, and summary examples of good practice services around the world. It describes the linkages needed with housing, education, employment and social protection sectors, and presents examples of integrated regional and national networks of community-based mental health services. Specific recommendations and action steps are presented for developing community mental health services that respect human rights and focus on recovery. This comprehensive document is accompanied by a set of seven technical packages focused on specific categories of mental health services and guidance for setting up new services.
The WHO Guidance on community mental health services: Promoting person-centred and rights-based approaches is a set of publications that provides information and support to all stakeholders who wish to develop or transform their mental health system and services to align with international human rights standards including the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.
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Healthcare 2020, 8(1), 26; https://doi.org/10.3390/healthcare8010026
The current article is an integrative and analytical literature review on the concept and meaning of empathy in health and social care professionals. Empathy, i.e., the ability to understand the perso...nal experience of the patient without bonding with them, constitutes an important communication skill for a health professional, one that includes three dimensions: the emotional, cognitive, and behavioral. It has been proven that health professionals with high levels of empathy operate more efficiently as to the fulfillment of their role in eliciting therapeutic change.The empathetic professional comprehends the needs of the health care users, as the latter feel safe to express the thoughts and problems that concern them. Although the importance of empathy is undeniable, a significantly high percentage of health professionals seem to find it difficult to adopt a model of empathetic communication in their everyday practice. Some of the factors that negatively influence the development of empathy are the high number of patients that professionals have to manage, the lack of adequate time, the focus on therapy within the existing academic culture, but also the lack of education in empathy. Developing empathetic skills should not only be the underlying objective in the teaching process of health and social care undergraduate students, but also the subject of the lifelong and continuous education of professionals
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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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Community health worker teams are potential game-changers in ensuring access to care in vulnerable communities. Who are they? What do they actually do? Can they help South Africa realize universal health coverage? As the proactive arm of the health services, community health workers teams provide ho...usehold and community education, early screening, tracing and referrals for a range of health and social services. There is little local or global evidence on the household services provided by such teams, beyond specific disease-oriented activities such as for HIV and TB. This paper seeks to address this gap.
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The larval stage of the parasite Taenia solium can encyst in the central nervous system causing neurocysticercosis, which is the main cause of acquired epilepsy in the countries in which the parasite is endemic. Endemic areas are those with the presence (or likely presence) of the full life cycle of... Taenia solium. The parasite is most prevalent in poor and vulnerable communities in which pigs roam free, open defecation is practiced, basic sanitation is deficient, and health education is absent or limited. Several tools are available for the control of Taenia solium. Preventive chemotherapy for Taenia solium taeniasis, which is directed at the adult tapeworm, is one of them. Other tools focus on pig management, pig vaccination and treatment, sanitation and hygiene, and community education. Three potential drugs—niclosamide, praziquantel, and albendazole—have been considered for use for preventive chemotherapy in Taenia solium taeniasis control programs through mass drug administration or targeted chemotherapy. In this Guideline, we provide recommendations for preventive chemotherapy in Taenia solium-endemic areas using niclosamide, praziquantel, or albendazole, including at which dose and in which population groups.
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Injection Safety and Safe Disposal of Medical Waste National Communication Strategy and Health Care Waste Management Standard
Operating Procedures (SOPs).
The overall objective of the consultancy was to review and align the three national technical and communication guiding documents on HCWM to th...e WHO Blue Book and other global standards and recommendations. The specific objectives of the assignment were ; to establish how well aligned the Kenya Healthcare Waste Management Guidelines, 2011, are to the WHO Blue Book on healthcare waste management, global recommendations and other global conventions on environmental protection; to establish the extent to which the Kenya Injection Safety and Safe Disposal of Medical Waste National Communication Strategy is aligned to the National Health Communication Guidelines, 2013; to determine the extent to which the current Standard Operating Procedures are aligned to the best available technologies (BAT) and best environmental practices (BEP) and international practices; and to assess current health care waste management practices at the health facilities supported by the GEF project.
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Interim rapid response guidance, 10 June 2022.
It includes considerations for certain populations such as patients with mild disease with considerations for community care, patients with moderate to severe disease, sexually active persons, pregnant or breastfeeding women, children and young persons.... The guidance also addresses considerations for clinical management such as the use of therapeutics, nutritional support, mental health services, and post-infection follow-up.
The document provides guidance for clinicians, health facility managers, health workers and infection prevention and control practitioners including but not limited to those working in primary care clinics, sexual health clinics, emergency departments, infectious diseases clinics, genitourinary clinics, dermatology clinics, maternity services, paediatrics, obstetrics and gynaecology and acute care facilities that provide care for patients with suspected or confirmed monkeypox
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3rd edition. Patient safety standards are critical for the establishment and assessment of patient safety programmes within hospitals. This third edition of the Patient safety assessment manual provides an updated set of standards and assessment criteria that reflect current best practice and WHO gu...idance. The manual will support the implementation of patient safety assessments and improvement programmes within hospitals as part of the Patient Safety Friendly Hospital Framework to ensure that patient safety is prioritized and facilities and staff implement best practices. The manual is a key tool for use by professional associations regulatory accrediting or oversight bodies and ministries of health to improve patient safety.
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The recommendations in this guideline are intended to inform development of national and subnational health policies, clinical protocols and programmatic guides. The target audience includes national and subnational public health policy-makers, implementers and managers of maternal, newborn and chil...d health programmes, health-care facility managers, supervisors/instructors for in-service training, health workers (including midwives, auxiliary nurse-midwives, nurses, paediatricians, neonatologists, general medical practitioners and community health workers), nongovernmental organizations, professional societies involved in the planning and management of maternal, newborn and child health services, academic staff involved in research and in the pre-service education and training of health workers, and those involved in the education of parents.
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Uganda hosts approximately 1.1 million refugees making it Africa’s largest refugee hosting country and one of the five largest refugee hosting countries in the world. Most recently, throughout 2016- 2018, Uganda was impacted by three parallel emergencies from South Sudan, the Democratic Republic o...f the Congo (DRC), and Burundi. In view of the on-going conflicts and famine
vulnerabilities in the Great Lakes Region, more refugee influxes and protracted refugee situations are anticipated in the foreseeable future. The unprecedented mass influx of refugees into Uganda in 2016-2018 has put enormous pressure on
the country’s basic service provision, in particular health and education services. Refugees share all social services with the local host communities. The refugee hosting districts are among the least developed districts in the country, and thus the additional refugee population is putting a high strain on already limited resources.
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The results of the report clearly show that in 2020, a year dominated by the emergence of COVID-19 and its associated health and economic crises, governments around the world rose to the challenge. Sharp increases in government spending on health at all country income levels underpinned the rise in ...health spending to a new high of US $9 trillion (approximately 11% of global GDP). Government health spending generally increased and offset declines in out-of-pocket spending. Importantly, the rise in government health spending was part of a much broader fiscal response to the pandemic. In high income and upper-middle income countries social protection spending also increased sharply in as governments attempted to cushion populations from the economic impacts of COVID-19. In contrast to health and social protection, growth in education spending was relatively subdued. Countries face the further challenge of sustaining increased public spending on health and other social sectors in the face of deteriorating macroeconomic conditions and rising debt servicing. This also includes the challenge of sustaining external support for low income countries, which is essential for reducing ensuring poverty, ensuring access to health services and strengthening pandemic preparedness.
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On November 9, the Russian military announced a full retreat of all their forces from the right bank of Dnipro River; by November 11, 41 settlements, including Kherson city, were de-occupied by Ukrainian forces. Civilians who live in these areas have endured months of combat and occupation. Services... have been interrupted or severely disrupted due to damage or destruction of facilities and infrastructure through combat actions, looting of the majority of the valuable assets by the retreating Russian troops, and dispersion of the people rendering said services.
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In the early morning of 6 February 2023, a magnitude 7.8 earthquake occurred in southern Türkiye near the
northern border of Syria. The earthquake was followed 11 minutes later by a magnitude 6.7 aftershock. Many
aftershocks are still being felt across the region. Whilst the impact is still bei...ng assessed, initial reports evidence
significant damage in the areas of southern Türkiye and northern Syria.
In response, the Syria Ministry of Health (MoH) activated its emergency operations centre (EOC) on 6 Feb 2023
under the chairmanship of the Deputy Minister. In all affected governorates, public and private health facilities
and medical convoys have been repurposed to support the response and are being managed by the National
Ministry of Health (MoH) and Directorate of Health (DoH) at governorate level. Support has been directed to
affected areas, with medical convoys including 28 ambulances and 7 mobile clinics, deployed from the health
directorates of Damascus, Rural Damascus, Quneitra, Homs, Tartous, Aleppo and Latakia
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In the last decade, Timor-Leste has made remarkable progress in strengthening its health system and improving the health status of its population. This has resulted in an increased life expectancy, and the achievement of Millennium Development Goals such as a reduction in infant and under-five morta...lity, an improvement in maternal and child health outcomes, and an increase in immunization coverage. Further, the country has successfully eliminated infectious diseases such as polio, measles, and maternal and neonatal tetanus. There is full political commitment to reducing the incidence of tuberculosis (TB) by 80% and the number of deaths due to TB by 90% by 2030. The country has made great progress in the context of the pandemic, having established numerous quarantine facilities/isolation centres; trained health-care workers; streamlined the procurement and supply of medicines, consumables, personal protective equipment and other equipment; and strengthened the capacity in critical care across secondary and tertiary health care, to better respond to future pandemics and other disaster situations.
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J Glob Health Sci. 2020 Jun;2(1):e3. A group of enzootic and zoonotic protozoan infections, the leishmaniases constitute among the most severely neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) and are found in all continents except Oceania. Representing the most common infectious diseases, NTDs comprise an open-...ended list of some 20 parasitic, bacterial, viral, protozoan and helminthic infections. Called “diseases of the poor,” because of their characteristic prevalence in poor populations regardless of a country's income status, they infect over one billion people in over 140 countries, with about 90% of the global burden in Africa. While NTDs do not contribute significantly to global deaths, they are debilitating and remain the most common infections among the poor worldwide, preventing them from escaping poverty by impacting livelihoods such as agriculture and livestock, and affecting cognitive, developmental and education outcomes.
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