BMJ Global Health, Vol.5 No. 12Spatial subdivision of the camp (‘sectoring’) was able to ‘flatten the curve’, reducing peak infection by up to 70% and delaying peak infection by up to several months. The use of face masks coupled with the efficient isolation of infected individuals reduced t...he overall incidence of infection, and sometimes averted epidemics altogether. These interventions must be implemented quickly in order to be maximally effective. Lockdowns had only small effects on COVID-19 dynamics.
Conclusions
Agent-based models are powerful tools for forecasting the spread of disease in spatially structured and heterogeneous populations. Our findings suggest that feasible interventions can slow the spread of COVID-19 in a refugee camp setting, and provide an evidence base for camp managers planning intervention strategies. Our model can be modified to study other closed populations at risk from COVID-19 or future epidemics.
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Overview.
The COVID-19 pandemic is the latest crisis facing the world, but unless humans release their grip on nature, it won’t be the last, according to a new report by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), which includes a new experimental index on human progress that takes into acco...unt countries’ carbon dioxide emissions and material footprint.
The report lays out a stark choice for world leaders - take bold steps to reduce the immense pressure that is being exerted on the environment and the natural world, or humanity’s progress will stall.
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World Report 2021, Human Rights Watch’s 31st annual review of human rights practices and trends around the globe, reviews developments in more than 100 countries.
In his introductory essay, Executive Director Kenneth Roth calls on the incoming US administration to more deeply embed respect for ...human rights as an element of domestic and foreign policy to counter the “wild oscillations in human rights policy” that in recent decades have come with each new resident of the White House. Roth emphasizes that even as the Trump administration mostly abandoned the protection of human rights, joined by China, Russia and others, other governments—typically working in coalition and some new to the cause—stepped forward to champion rights. As it works to entrench rights protections, the Biden administration should seek to join, not supplant, this new collective effort.
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COVID-19 has heavily emphasized how contact tracing is crucial for managing outbreaks, and as part of the strategy for adjusting, and eventually lifting, lockdowns and other stringent public health and social measures. As the pandemic develops further, it will be a core measure to manage further wav...es of infection. In early June 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) convened an online global consultation on contact tracing in the context of COVID-19, looking at the lessons of the pandemic to date; known and emerging best practices; and the measures necessary for urgent implementation, scale-up, maintenance and enhancement of contact tracing activities.
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Oxfam’s report found that Covid-19 has the potential to increase economic inequality in almost every country at once, the first time this has happened since records began over a century ago. It sets out how a rigged economy is enabling a super-rich elite to amass wealth in the middle of the worst ...recession since the Great Depression, while billions of people are struggling amid the worst job crisis in over 90 years. Unless rising inequality is tackled, half a billion more people could be living in poverty on less than $5.50 (£4.00) a day in 2030, than at the start of the pandemic.
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The document presents an assessment developed by both institutions as a contribution to the prioritization of education in national response plans to the health emergency and future recovery strategies. "Countries have deployed various response and recovery plans in which education needs to be incor...porated as a central element," the report says, "not only to ensure an education response, but to achieve an equitable, inclusive and sustainable recovery”.
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25 February 2021
This technical guidance is a living document that builds on guidelines and reports of the UNAIDS Joint Programme. The definitions contained herein are working definitions that are subject to change. Updates will also be added further to the work of the multistakeholder Task Team on... community-led AIDS responses that was recently established by the UNAIDS Executive Director and the UNAIDS Joint Programme, and which will conclude its task in December 2021.
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29 Dec 2021. Comprehensive slideset updated regularly to include the latest data and guidance on best practices for COVID-19 diagnosis and prevention of COVID-19 transmission.
This publication summarizes the facilitators and barriers that will be encountered in the deinstitutionalization process and identifies useful and proven interventions in Latin American and Caribbean countries. Four areas of work are identified with the respective guidelines or suggestions for actio...n, which should provide an operational guide for countries that are restructuring mental health services and moving toward the deinstitutionalization of psychiatric care.
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The overall goal of this strategy is to ensure accurate understanding of the
benefits of covid-19 vaccination and alleviate apprehension about the vaccine, to ensure its acceptance and encourage uptake across various audiences.
Objectives
x Create demand, promote acceptability and accessibility o...f COVID-19
vaccine among at least 90% of the general public.
x Develop appropriate messages and identify channels to communicate
the potential benefits and risks of the vaccine to all concerned parties,
including decision-makers at all levels.
x Provide timely and accurate information to address misinformation,
rumors and other crisis situations.
x Effectively mobilize and empower communities to ensure participation
and ownership of the vaccination process
x Strengthen communication mechanisms and partnerships among key
stakeholders to support the national communication effort.
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After ten years of war, the vast majority of Syria’s children cannot imagine a future in their country, according to a new report by Save the Children. On average, 86% of Syrian refugee children surveyed in Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey and the Netherlands said they would not want to return to their cou...ntry of origin. Of children displaced inside Syria, one in three would rather be living in another country. Children who fled their homes are struggling to feel safe where they are now, as around two in five children of those surveyed by Save the Children said they face discrimination and a lack of education. Many feel they have no say over their future.
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A series of data syntheses from the RCCE Collective Service. It focuses on public perceptions of the COVID-19 vaccinations, bringing together 66 data sources from quantitative surveys across 107 countries and six regions, underpinned by a rapid review of additional studies and community feedback dat...a from Africa.
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The case for evidence- based communication of science
The 2021 COVID-19 Strategic Preparedness and Response Plan (SPRP) for AFR serves as a regional guide for a holistic public health response to COVID‑19 at regional, national and sub-national levels. The 2021
SPRP:
1. Builds upon the lessons learnt from the implementation of the 2020 SPRP and outl...ines a regional preparedness, response and recovery strategy for COVID‑19.
2. Has been adapted to reflect the Regional context including COVID-19 vaccination. It also considers epidemiological changes and recommen-dations emerging from the evaluation report of the 2020 SPRP4.
3. Highlights to Member States strategic preparedness and response actions to be sustained at national and sub-national levels, as well as the critical inter-agency and partner support required.
4. provides the indicative resource requirements to reinforce WHO planned interventions in the African Region to enhance countries’ capacities to suppress transmission, save lives and mitigate the impact of the pandemic on people and health systems.
5. Provides a road map for mitigating potential resurgence in the Region as economies reopen and ensure country level continuity of other essential health services.
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The number of COVID-19 cases is on the rise again, with South Africa nearing half of all confirmed cases in the WHO African Region. Threats of new variants loom and low vaccination coverage raises questions on the future of the response to COVID-19. Prevention remains the key strategy in most sub-Sa...haran countries. Five National Centres (NCs) from the African Health Observatory Platform on Health Systems and Policies (AHOP), based in Ethiopia, Kenya, Nigeria, Rwanda and Senegal, reflect on lessons to be learnt from their containment responses in the initial phases. They construct timelines to highlight the policies and challenges associated with introducing a range of public health containment measures and
discuss the extent to which these measures continue to be valuable given the ever-changing nature of the pandemic.
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The early prevention project “Strong together!” supports refugee parents and their young children (0–4 years) in Berlin, Germany. It aims to mitigate the transmission of trauma to the generation born in exile. For refugee families who have only recently arrived in Germany, the COVID‐19 pande...mic poses a particularly great challenge. Not only are they confronted with numerous challenges in respect to rebuilding their lives in Germany after fleeing war and persecution, but are also vulnerable to conscious and unconscious anxieties, fantasies, and conflicts evoked by the pandemic and the threat it poses to their lives. This was observed in the context of the mother–child groups of “Strong together!”
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It has been over a year since Kenya identified the first case of COVID-19 in the country. The Government formed the National COVID-19 task force, which supported the country's response through multi-sectoral technical working groups on testing, case management, risk communication and community engag...ement among others. An earlier version of the COVID case management guideline was released in April 2020 and capacity building of health care workers on diagnosis and treatment of COVID-19 was quickly carried out, even as counties prepared themselves by setting up isolation centres and supplies
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Kenya Quality Model for Health - Hospitals