People-centered approaches that help communities maintain protective behaviours and follow guidelines set out by public health and government agencies are more important than ever. The evidence is clear, communities play a role in preventing and controlling epidemics and they are best able to take a
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ction and slow or stop the spread of disease when properly engaged and empowered. This toolbox in 2 parts offers best practice approaches to community engagement with families. Promoting individual and joint responsibilities for the safety of the family, this toolbox aims to bring families and households together to manage shared risks and agree to safe behaviours critical for their safety and the safety of their community.
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21 May 2021. he Practical Approach to Care Kit – PACK – is used by nurses, doctors and community health workers in their everyday work to care for patients at the clinic and in the community – PACK Adult, PACK Adolescent, PACK Child and PACK Community.
PACK Adult is also known as APC (Adult P
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rimary Care) outside of the Western Cape. Both form part of the the Ideal Clinic initiative: www.idealhealthfacility.org.za
PACK Home is designed for people seeking more information about how to care for their own health and the health of their family at home.
Available in English, Afrikaans and isiXhosa
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Nurses play a critical role in patient care, detecting potential problems, and advocating for a culture of safety. NSO and our insurance carrier partner, CNA, designed this self-assessment checklist based on significant topics from our Nurse Claim Report to help nurses enhance patient safety and min
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imize your liability exposure.
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Since the emergence of COVID 19 in December 2019, various public health responses measures have been implemented to control the pandemic. Among measures taken by the Africa CDC was the launch of PACT initiative to accelerate COVID 19 testing. Key to the initiative is the engagement of Community Heal
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th Workers (CHWs) in risk communication and community engagement (RCCE), surveillance activities for early case identification, contacts tracing and in facilitating referrals for testing and continuum of care.
As of 31 May 2021, Through PACT support, over 17154 CHWs have been trained and locally deployed in 24 AU Member states. The PACT supported CHWs visited more than 2,568,654 households for community engagement activities, active case search and contact tracing, identified 1,618,601 Contacts, 710,167 COVID 19 suspect cases based on the standard case definition and facilitated referrals for 553053 (78%) suspect cases for testing. These efforts were crucial for early identification and isolation of cases in limiting further transmission.
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This guide is designed to accompany the training module, Communicating with health workers about COVID-19 vaccination. It provides detailed explanations, resources and guidance to accompany the slides in the training module and support those implementing the training. It is intended for training fac
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ilitators or trainers of trainers (ToTs) who will be conducting the training at the country level either face-to-face or online with a group of participants. Facilitators can use this guidance document to help them adapt the training content to their local context and facilitate discussion with training participants. Facilitators are encouraged to have this guide available to them as a tool during the training session.
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As a Frontline Health Care Worker or a Vaccinator, you need to counsel pregnant women about the availability, value and precautions regarding the COVID-19 vaccine. This note provides you with the information that you need to educate and support pregnant women so that they can make an informed decisi
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on about getting the COVID-19 vaccine. The note is structured in the form of questions-answers to make it easier for you to inform pregnant women and their families about the most important issues related to COVID-19 vaccination in pregnant women.
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This report presents operational recommendations based on monthly COVID-19 online and offline community feedback trends analysis in Africa.It aims to enable evidence-based decision-making at
regional and national levels.
Breast cancer. Just reading those words can make many women worry. And that’s natural. Nearly everyone knows someone touched by the disease.
But there is a lot of good news about breast cancer these days. Treatments keep getting better, and we know more than ever about ways to prevent the disease
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. These eight simple steps can help lower the risk of breast cancer. Not every one applies to every woman, but together they
can have a big impact. Available in English, Spanish, Vietnamese
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Each year more than one million women are diagnosed with breast cancer worldwide over half of whom will die from the disease. Breast cancer is the most common cancer and the leading cause of cancer death for women
MEDBOX Issue Brief no.18.
The MEDBOX team has compiled a new issue brief on the impact of COVID-19 on PLHIV HIV prevention programmes and treatment for this year's World AIDS Day on 1 December 2021.
Adolescent girls and young women (AGYW) remain disproportionately affected by HIV in Eastern and Southern Africa (ESA), with 26 per cent of new infections attributed to this population. AGYW face many personal, social and structural barriers to access, uptake and use of traditional HIV prevention me
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thods. Oral Pre-exposure Prophylaxis (PrEP) is proven to be highly effective as an additional prevention choice for reducing the risk of HIV acquisition, including for AGYW. Successful uptake and adherence to PrEP is critical in its effectiveness as an HIV prevention method, however, the current demand for PrEP by AGYW is low with suboptimal adherence.
Within the ESA region, there is currently great impetus to address these challenges and scale up PrEP for AGYW. A critical aspect of this is to leverage the learnings and evidence from implementation of how to improve the demand and quality of PrEP programming for this population. Improving the Quality of Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis Implementation for Adolescent Girls and Young Women in Eastern and Southern Africa examines the current efforts in the region to accelerate and scale up evidence-based PrEP delivery platforms. The implementation brief provides current knowledge and builds on WHO guidance to provide key considerations for implementation, including driving demand and improving quality, as well as focus on wider combination prevention and integration agendas.
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Antibiotics 2022, 11(3), 329; https://doi.org/10.3390/antibiotics11030329.
The authors found that the most-represented antibiotics on the Rwandan market were amoxicillin, co-trimoxazole and cloxacillin. No counterfeit antibiotics were found in this study. However, substandard batches with moderate
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deviations were found, suggesting that regular quality control of antibiotics is needed in Rwanda.
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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
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. 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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Minimizing risk of developing antibiotic resistance and aquatic ecotoxicity in the environment resulting from the manufacturing of human antibiotic.
The Standard, facilitated by BSI Standards Limited (BSI), provides clear guidance to manufacturers in the global antibiotic supply chain to ensure t
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hat their antibiotics are made responsibly, helping to minimize the risk of AMR in the environment.
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Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is a threat to global health and development and it contributes to millions of deaths worldwide each year. Inappropriate use and overuse of antibiotics are driving an increase in AMR and have a detrimental impact on the effectiveness of these critical medicines. Throug
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h the Global Action Plan on AMR, WHO is working to improve the surveillance of antimicrobial resistance and reduce inappropriate antibiotic consumption.
There is a recognized need for high-quality resources to improve antibiotic prescribing globally. To address this need, a pragmatic approach was taken by WHO to develop actionable guidance for empiric antibiotic use.
The WHO AWaRe (Access, Watch, Reserve) antibiotic book provides concise, evidence-based guidance on the choice of antibiotic, dose, route of administration, and duration of treatment for more than 30 of the most common clinical infections in children and adults in both primary health care and hospital settings. The information included in the book supports the recommendations for antibiotics listed on the WHO Model Lists of Essential Medicines and Essential Medicines Children and the WHO AWaRe classification of antibiotics.
The WHO AWaRe antibiotic book is accompanied by summary infographics for each infection for both adults and children that provide a quick-reference guide for health care workers at the point of care.
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This chapter discusses the antibacterial treatment of leprosy infections. Antibiotic treatment is
a key component of leprosy treatment, as it is vital to prevent the progression of the infection.
Treatment with rifampin and other antibiotics is highly effective and cures 98% of patients with
the
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leprosy infection. Furthermore, the relapse rate is very low, at about 1% over 5–10 years.
There is little M. leprae drug resistance in leprosy and few reports of multi-drug resistance (1, 2, 3,
4, 5, 6, 7, 8). An antibiotic treatment may take months or years to produce clinical improvement,
especially in patients with an initial high bacterial index (BI).
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Schistosomiasis, also known as bilharzia, is a disease caused by parasitic worms that require two hosts: humans and certain species of snails. There are two forms of the disease, namely, intestinal schistosomiasis, caused by Schistosoma mansoni and S. japonicum, and urogenital schistosomiasis, cause
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d by S. haematobium. There are less common schistosome species in some parts of the world, e.g. S. mekongi and S. intercalatum. Schistosomiasis ranks second only to malaria as the most common parasitic disease worldwide.
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The aim of this toolkit is to guide countries on how to best estimate their current burden of dengue by combining existing data from dengue surveillance systems with on-going research efforts to measure the community burden
of dengue.
The major neglected tropical diseases, Taenia solium taeniosis/cysticercosis and schistosomiasis caused by Schistosoma mansoni or S. haematobium are presumed to be widely distributed in Africa. Taenia solium taeniosis/ cysticercosis has been reported as an emerging disease in different regions of Af
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rica [1, 2], but currently the exact distribution remains unclear. Reported prevalences of T. solium taeniosis and cysticercosis in African countries are not extensive and are further complicated by the lack of ‘gold standard’ tests for diagnosis.
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