- Interim guide: May 2020 update.
On the 25th of March, the GPEI circulated the first update of the
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interim guide to help ensure continuity of the programme’s operations in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as its support to the pandemic response while also ensuring the safety of its personnel and the communities it works with.
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At least half of the world’s population does not have full coverage of essential health services. Health expenses push more than 100 million people into extreme poverty each and every year, forcing them into terrible choices that no one should eve
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r have to make: Buy medicine or food? Education or health care? These stark statistics make the case for universal health coverage compelling.
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Significant progress has been made in the eradication of three priority diseases in the African Region, as a result of extensive collaboration betw
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een the Regional Office, WHO country offices and countries. For example, in August 2020, the region was certified free of wild poliovirus. In the area of neglected tropical diseases, Guinea worm disease is on the verge of eradication, and 12 member states are within reach of being certified as having eradicated yaws by the end of this year.
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While there has been real progress in addressing the burden of disease in the WHO African region, the COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted
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the link between health, economics and security, as the region saw decades of progress threatened, including positive trends in decreasing inequality. In the African Region the momentum towards achieving the 2030 SDG disease burden reduction targets (SDG targets 3.3, 3.4 and 3B) has stalled.
The COVID-19 pandemic was also a major threat to gains made, such as the eradication of polio in the region, declared in 2020; reduced numbers of new HIV infections in 2021 compared to 2010; and passing the 2020 milestone of the End TB Strategy, with a 22% reduction in new cases compared with 2015. However, the pandemic also disrupted essential health services in 92% of countries globally, 22.7 million children missed basic immunization, there was an increase in malaria and TB, and global deaths from TB rose for the first time since 2015.
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This report is one of the first major products of the newly established Precision Public Health Metrics unit of the UCN cluster of
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the WHO Regional Office for Africa. The report presents national trends in communicable and non-communicable disease burden and control in the WHO African region. It tracks progress made with respect to disease burden reduction, elimination and eradication. It also highlights major emerging threats, opportunities and priorities in the fight against commu- nicable and non-communicable diseases in the region. It covers the period 2000-2022, but for some indicators, information is available only up to 2021.
The report shows the number of reported cases for malaria and vaccine preventable diseases (meningitis, measles, yellow fever, pertussis, diphtheria, tetanus, and polio); disease incidence due to HIV, tuberculosis and four major noncommunicable diseases (cardiovas- cular diseases, cancers, diabetes and chronic respira- tory diseases).
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During the past five decades, the incidence of dengue has increased 30-fold. Some 50–100 million new infections are estimated to occur annually in more than 100 endemic countries, with a document
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ed further spread to previously unaffected areas; every year hundreds of thousands of severe cases arise, including 20 000 deaths; 264 disability-adjusted life years per million population per year are lost , at an estimated cost for ambulatory and hospitalized cases of US$ 514–1394, often affecting very poor populations. The true numbers are probably far worse, since severe underreporting and misclassification of dengue cases have been documented.
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Globalization and Health201612:63; DOI: 10.1186/s12992-016-0195-3
Building on the 2021 Interim guidance, this second version and update, incorporates the lessons and feedback from the hepatitis pilots that success
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fully demonstrated the feasibility of measuring hepatitis B and C impact targets to demonstrate elimination, whilst highlighting challenges caused by high disease burden in some countries, as well as delays in reaching mortality targets due to the long natural history of disease progression to liver cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma.
The path to elimination provides a framework with 3 levels of achievements for which WHO certification is available. Each stepwise progression from bronze to silver to gold tiers will promote an iterative expansion of prevention, diagnosis and treatment services for viral hepatitis services and strengthen measurement systems to support attainment of the 2030 elimination goals.
This updated version also includes changes, clarifications and new guidance on alternative measurement approaches for country validation of elimination. Through the validation process, WHO and partners continue to provide country support for strengthening health system capacity and patient-centred services that respect and protect the human rights of people living with viral hepatitis and ensures meaningful engagement of communities in the national, regional and global viral hepatitis response.
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The 12th Meeting of the Regional Certification Commission (RCC) for the Polio Endgame in
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the Region of the Americas was conducted virtually due to the pandemic of COVID-19. The meeting was composed of 5 steps:
Step 1: An introductory meeting between RCC members and Secretariat
Step 2: Assessment of the annual and containment reports by the reviewers
Step 3: Observations and recommendations review
Step 4: A meeting between RCC Chair and the Secretariat to review the draft report and general recommendations of the meeting
Step 5: RCC meeting to review and approve the recommendations to each country and the final report and recommendations of the meeting
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PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases September 2014 | Volume 8 | Issue 9 | e3016 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pntd.0003016
In an environment of stagnant donor funding and increasing private sector investment in low- and middle-income countries, actors in both the public and private sectors are increasingly interested in using blended finance approaches to catalyze new f
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unding for global health and achieve health outcomes. As USAID moves towards greater engagement with the private sector, blended finance will be an important component to help achieve development objectives.
Accessed 19th May 2019.
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Ending Cholera—A Global Roadmap to 2030 operationalises the new global strategy for cholera control at
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the country level and provides a concrete path toward a world in which cholera is no longer a threat to public health
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The Global Vaccine Action Plan (GVAP) 2011-2020, endorsed by Member States during the May 2012 World Health Assembly, has set ambitious targets to
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improve access to immunization and tackle vaccine-preventable diseases. This responsibility has been translated into firm commitments in February 2016, through the signature of the Addis Declaration on Immunization (ADI) by African Ministers and subsequently endorsed by the Heads of States from across Africa at the 28th African Union Summit held in January 2017. This commitment from the highest level of government comes as a catalyst to immunization efforts on the continent to deliver on the promise of universal immunization
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The Executive Board at its 150th session noted an earlier version of this report.1 The present report provides an update on the implementation of
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the Strategic Action Plan on Polio Transition (2018–2023)2 at the start of 2022, within the context of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic.
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The Strategy provides a high-level unifying framework to leverage existing capacities, address barriers and strengthen the use of genomic surveillance in
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the detection, monitoring and response to public health threats. Genomic surveillance is part of the broader surveillance and laboratory system, and its implementation should reinforce end-to-end capacities including sample collection, diagnostics, data sharing and analysis. The strategy aims to facilitate the connectivity between different disease control programs and surveillance networks. This interoperability will strengthen the cross-cutting essential public health laboratory functions underpinning genomics holistically. The strategy articulates the overarching goal, objectives and strategic actions needed. These are dependent on commitments from countries, partners and WHO for their implementation.
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Since the 1970s, voluntary contributions have become an increasingly important component of WHO's budget. As voluntary contributions tend to be earmarked for donor-specified programmes and projects, there are concerns that this trend has diverted fo
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cus away from WHO's strategic priorities, made coordination and attaining coherence more difficult, undermined WHO's democratic structures and given undue power to a handful of wealthy donors. In the past few years, the WHO Secretariat has pushed for donors to increase the amount of flexible funding they provide.
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The growing understanding of how sequence information can contribute to improved public health is driving global investments in sequencing facilities and programmes.
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The falling cost and complexity of generating GSD provides opportunities for expanding sequencing capacity; however, challenges to widespread implementation remain. This document provides policy-makers and stakeholders with guidance on how to maximize the public health benefit of SARS-CoV-2 genomic sequencing activities in the short and long term as the pandemic continues to unfold. Practical considerations for the implementation of a virus genomic sequencing programme and an overview of the public health objectives of genomic sequencing are covered. This guidance focuses on SARS-CoV-2 but is applicable to other pathogens of public health concern.
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