This primer aims to guide health professionals on engaging with WASH-related issues. It gives an overview of WASH interventions and the status of WASH services globally and outlines key linkages wit...h health. It provides examples of key actions that health actors can take to ensure WASH efforts effectively protect public health and highlights World Health Organization (WHO) activities to support those actions.
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Group psychological help for adults impaired by distress in communities exposed to adversity
With this manual, the World Health Organization (WHO) is responding to requests from colleagues around the world for a group version of the manual Problem ...Management Plus (PM+), which was developed for adults impaired by distress in communities who are exposed to adversity. Aspects of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) have been changed to make them feasible in communities that do not have many specialists. To ensure maximum use, the intervention is developed in such a way that it can help people with depression, anxiety and stress, whether or not exposure to adversity has caused these problems. It can be applied to improve aspects of mental health and psychosocial well-being no matter how severe people’s problems are.
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COVID-19 has resulted in an unprecedented global crisis. As the pandemic spreads and countries around the world continue to struggle to contain its health and socio-economic consequences, UNRWA is issuing a new humanitarian appeal from August through December 2020 to address the worst impacts ...class="attribute-to-highlight medbox">of the pandemic on Palestine refugees across the Agency’s five fields of operation. Through this appeal the Agency seeks US$ 94.6 million. The funds requested in this appeal are additional to the previous UNRWA COVID-19 appeal for March to July.
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“They Treated Us in Monstrous Ways”.
Since the Syrian conflict began in March 2011, men and boys and transgender women have been subjected to rape and other forms of sexual violence by the Syrian government and non-state armed groups, includin...g the extremist armed group Islamic State (also known as ISIS). Heterosexual men and boys are vulnerable to sexual violence in Syria, but men who are gay or bisexual—or perceived to be—and transgender women are particularly at risk.
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Bull World Health Organ 2018;96:450–461 | doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.2471/BLT.17.206466
The aim of our study was to determine whether an intervention designed
to involve the male partners of preg...nant women in Burkina Faso in facility-based maternity care influences care-seeking and healthy practices after childbirth.
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This document provides guidance on how to implement contact screening and chemoprophylaxis with single-dose rifampicin. The contents are logically ordered: counselling and obtaining consent, identification and listing of index case, listing ...ass="attribute-to-highlight medbox">of contacts, tracing of contacts, screening of contacts, administration of prophylactic drugs. Managerial aspects to undertake contact screeninig and chemoprophylaxis are also elaborated, including planning , training , supervision and drug management.
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The WHO Guidelines on physical activity and sedentary behaviour provide evidence-based public health recommendations for children, adolescents, adults and older adults on the amount of physical activity (frequency, intensity and duration) required t...o offer significant health benefits and mitigate health risks. For the first time, recommendations are provided on the associations between sedentary behaviour and health outcomes, as well as for subpopulations, such as pregnant and postpartum women, and people living with chronic conditions or disability.
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The checklist is aligned with, and builds upon, existing COVID-19-related WHO guidelines and is structured around protective measures related to: 1) hand hygiene and respiratory etiquette; 2) physical distancing; 3) use of masks in schools; 4) envir...onmental cleaning and ventilation; and 5) respecting procedures for isolation of all people with symptoms. The checklist is designed to support policy-makers, staff and officials from the education and health sectors, local authorities, school principals/leaders and administrators, teachers’ unions, community leaders, school staff, teachers, parents and caregivers.
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Orientations pour faire face à une infodémie mondiale et favoriser la demande de vaccination
Décembre 2020
La désinformation menace le succès des programmes de vaccination dans le monde entier. Ce guide vise à aider les organisations à faire face à l'infodémie mondiale par l'élaboration ...de plans d'action nationaux stratégiques et bien coordonnés pour contrer rapidement la désinformation sur les vaccins et créer une demande de vaccination qui soit fondée sur l'écoute sociale.
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3 February 2021
Las crisis relacionadas con las vacunas y la vacunación requieren una respuesta de comunicación diferente a las estrategias comunicacionales para promover los beneficios y la importancia de las vacunas en general. Este documento presenta las orientaciones técnicas necesarias para... desarrollar un plan de comunicación adecuado para manejar las crisis relacionadas con la seguridad de las vacunas y de la vacunación. Estas orientaciones les serán útiles a los actores relevantes de nivel gerencial en el área de la inmunización y de la seguridad de las vacunas y la vacunación.
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Ces dernières années, la Guinée a accordé une attention particulière à l’amélioration de la santé reproductive, maternelle, néonatale, infantile et des adolescents (SRMNIA) – Objectif Stratégique 2 de la politique nationale santé (PNS), Orientation Stratégique 2 du ...bute-to-highlight medbox">Plan National de Développement Sanitaire (PNDS) 2015-2014 et le Plan Stratégique Santé de la Reproduction (PSSR) 2016-2010 - en
mettant l’accent sur un meilleur accès aux interventions à haut impact et le renforcement du système de santé.
L’objectif général du dossier d’investissement est de réaliser des progrès vers une couverture sanitaire universelle en matière de la SRMNIA auprès des populations-cibles grâce à un accès accru d’un paquet complet d’interventions à haut impact de qualité et à la protection contre le risque financier (en termes de mise en œuvre des politiques sur la gratuité des services).
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These guidelines group all recommendations on TB care and support in one document and are complemented by an operational handbook. The guidelines are to be used primarily by national TB programmes, or their equivalents in Ministries of Health, ...stakeholders and technical organizations working on TB care in the public and private sectors and in the community.
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orientaciones provisionales, 8 de noviembre de 2020
This interim guidance is most useful for countries interested in monitoring relative circulations of influenza and SARS-CoV-2 viruses. The document provides practical information to maintain surve...illance of influenza and monitor SARS-CoV-2 using existing surveillance systems. It contains updated considerations for addressing disruptions in the influenza sentinel surveillance and extending to include COVID-19 wherever possible. Updated algorithms for testing of both influenza and SARS-CoV-2 for surveillance are also included. This document is an update of Operational considerations for COVID-19 surveillance using GISRS and GISRS for the upcoming influenza seasons during the COVID-19 pandemic
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Has the world worked together to tackle the coronavirus? July 2021. This research paper assesses how the global community has responded to calls for greater solidarity in tackling the COVID-19 pandemic, and presents the insights of key stakeholders ...and experts in global health governance, health security, and pandemic preparedness and response. The authors examine the state of solidarity at global, regional and national levels, and present case studies on COVAX and on the EU’s turbulent journey through solidarity.
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July 2021. This publication brings together important clinical and programmatic updates produced by WHO since 2016 and provides comprehensive, evidence-informed recommendations and good practice statements within a public health, rights-based and person-centred approach.
These guidelines bring in... the most recent guidance on HIV testing strategies - the entry point for HIV prevention and treatment - and include comprehensive guidance on infant diagnosis. Key recommendations are presented on rapid antiretroviral therapy (ART) initiation and the use of dolutegravir. Updated recommendations are included on the timing of ART for people with TB, and the use of point-of-care technologies for treatment monitoring.
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As the global community aims to fulfill its commitments to the UN Sustainable Development Goals, and the achievement of universal health coverage, dozens of countries have committed to the expansion... of community health workers (CHWs) as the front line of their healthcare systems [1, 2]. Robust research demonstrates CHWs improve access to care, reduce maternal, newborn, and child mortality, improve clinical outcomes for chronic diseases, and prevent disease outbreaks [3].
To support the operationalization of quality CHW program design and implementation, USAID, UNICEF, the Community Health Impact Coalition, and Initiatives Inc. have updated and adapted the Community Health Worker Assessment and Improvement Matrix (CHW AIM) Program Functionality Matrix [12]. This tool can be used to identify design and implementation gaps in both small- and national-scale CHW programs, and close gaps in policy and practice.
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For the primary health worker in a low/middle-income country (LMIC) setting, delivering quality primary care is challenging. This is often complicated by clinical guidance that is out of date, inconsistent and informed by evidence from high-income c...ountries that ignores LMIC resource constraints and burden of disease. The Knowledge Translation Unit (KTU) of the University of Cape Town Lung Institute has developed, implemented and evaluated a health systems intervention in South Africa, and localised it to Botswana, Nigeria, Ethiopia and Brazil, that simplifies and standardises the care delivered by primary health workers while strengthening the system in which they work. At the core of this intervention, called Practical Approach to Care Kit (PACK), is a clinical decision support tool, the PACK guide. This paper describes the development of the guide over an 18-year period and explains the design features that have addressed what the patient, the clinician and the health system need from clinical guidance, and have made it, in the words of a South African primary care nurse, ‘A tool for every day for every patient’. It describes the lessons learnt during the development process that the KTU now applies to further development, maintenance and in-country localisation of the guide: develop clinical decision support in context first, involve local stakeholders in all stages, leverage others’ evidence databases to remain up to date and ensure content development, updating and localisation articulate with implementation.
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On February 29, 2020, the United States and the Taliban signed an agreement outlining a phased withdrawal of US forces from Afghanistan in exchange for Taliban commitments not to allow attacks on the US or its allies from Afghan territory. The troop... withdrawal is expected to take place in parallel with negotiations between representatives from the Afghan government and other Afghan political groups and Taliban leaders aimed at achieving a political settlement after decades of armed conflict.
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This report aims to support countries in the necessary transition toward healthier, more sustainable diets by integrating biodiversity in food-based interventions to support nutrition and health. It is intended to help guide decision-makers in the health, nutrition and other sectors, to:
Consider... the important role of biodiversity in food systems for the development of integrated interventions to support healthy, diverse and sustainable diets;
To focus investments and country support for more comprehensive, coordinated and cross-cutting public health and nutrition projects and policies; and
To strengthen the resilience of food systems, health systems, and societies, each of which are each increasingly compromised by widespread ecological degradation, biodiversity loss and climate change.
Biodiversity at every level (genetic, species and ecosystem level) is a foundational pillar for food security, nutrition, and dietary quality. It is the basic source of variety in essential foods, nutrients, vitamins and minerals, and medicines, and underpins life-sustaining ecosystem services. It is a core environmental determinant of health, often a vital ingredient of healthy nutritional outcomes and livelihoods, gender equality, social equity, and other health determinants.
Biodiversity can play a more prominent role in planning for nutritional outcomes in various ways, e.g. by facilitating the production of nutritious fruits and plant products, sustaining livelihoods through more efficient production and increasing the diversity of products available in markets. This Guidance presents and expands on six core building blocks for mainstreaming biodiversity for nutrition and health:
Cross-sectoral knowledge development and knowledge co-production;
Enabling environments;
Integration;
Conservation and the wider use of biodiversity;
Education and awareness-raising;
Monitoring and evaluation;
This WHO report builds on an unprecedented opportunity to mainstream biodiversity in order to support healthy and sustainable diets, and offers the necessary technical guidance to catalyze and support a transformation of the global food system and transition to healthier, more sustainable diets.
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WHO is launching a “Revised edition, 2021” for the Caring for women subjected to violence: A WHO training curriculum for health-care providers today. The revised edition includes 4 new modules three of which are for health managers to assess and... strengthen health facility readiness and one module, which is for managers and providers to support prevention of violence against women. The earlier content published in 2019 remains unchanged. The 2021 edition is aimed at creating an enabling health systems environment for health workers to provide quality care to women subjected to violence.
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