Asthma is the most common non-communicable disease in children and remains one of the most common throughout the life course. The great majority of the burden of this disease is seen in low-income and middle-income countries (LMICs), which have disproportionately high asthma-related mortality relati...ve to asthma prevalence. This is particularly true for many countries in sub-Saharan Africa. Although inhaled asthma treatments (particularly those containing inhaled corticosteroids) markedly reduce asthma morbidity and mortality, a substantial proportion of the children, adolescents, and adults with asthma in LMICs do not get to benefit from these, due to poor availability and affordability. In this review, we consider the reality faced by clinicians managing asthma in the primary and secondary care in sub-Saharan Africa and suggest how we might go about making diagnosis and treatment decisions in a range of resource-constrained scenarios. We also provide recommendations for research and policy, to help bridge the gap between current practice in sub-Saharan Africa and Global Initiative for Asthma (GINA) recommended diagnostic processes and treatment for children, adolescents, and adults with asthma.
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Guide for coordinators and data collectors - The WHO Operational Package for Assessing, Monitoring and Evaluating Country Pharmaceutical Situations is intended as a useful tool for researchers, policy-makers, planners and others ...te-to-highlight medbox">who need to use standardized measurement tools to gather data and other information. In addition, the operational package can be used by international agencies and donors, by professional groups and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs).
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The consolidated guidelines are complemented by an operational handbook which is designed to assist with implementation of the WHO recommendations by Member States, technical partners and others who... are involved in the management of patients with DR-TB. The WHO Operational Handbook on Tuberculosis, Module 4: Treatment - Drug-Resistant Tuberculosis Treatment provides practical guidance on how to put in place the recommendations at the scale needed to achieve national and global impact.
The document provides information on different aspects of care and support for TB patients. In particular, the handbook provides practical guidance on the implementation of the interventions that enable treatment adherence such as social support, treatment administration options, digital adherence technologies. The practical guidance also includes models of care for all TB patients, models of care for children and adolescents, integrated care for TB, HIV and comorbidities, engagement of private sector, managing of TB in health emergencies. This new practical handbook also includes two important chapters on health education and counselling, and palliative care for patients with TB.
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On 15–16 December 2020, WHO and the Medicines for Malaria Venture co-convened a technical consultation to consider the preferred product characteristics (PPCs) for drugs used in malaria chemoprevention. The main goal of the technical consultation ...was to agree on the most important PPCs for drugs to protect populations from malaria (chemoprevention), while considering relevant measures of efficacy and the safety data needed to support WHO policy recommendations.
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Guidelines for national programmes and other stakeholders
Annexes for webposting and CD-Rom distribution with the policy guidelines
WHO REPORT ON THE GLOBAL TOBACCO EPIDEMIC, 2017
The Guidance Notes seek to help operationalize, simplify and standardize the collection and reporting of data through the application of common language and methods. They provide information on the key issues to take into account in the collection of health data and the types of data that should be ...collated, and potential stakeholders to engage with. They adapt and complement the UNDRR/UNISDR Technical guidance for monitoring and reporting on progress in achieving the global targets of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction, which has a multisectoral target audience.
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The WHO operational handbook on tuberculosis: tuberculosis preventive treatment is the companion, implementation guide to the 2020 WHO guidelines on TB preventive treatment.[1] Just as these guideli...nes are the first to be released under the rubric of the WHO consolidated TB guidelines, this handbook will be the first in a modular series of practical guides meant for the implementers of various aspects of the programmatic management TB.
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Injection practices worldwide and especially in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) include multiple, avoidable unsafe practices that ultimately lead to the large-scale transmission of bloodborne viruses among patients, health care providers and the community at large.
The primary audience for these recommendations includes health professionals who are responsible for developing national and local health-care guidelines and protocols and health workers involved in the provision of care to women and their newborns ...during pregnancy, labour and childbirth; this includes midwives, nurses, general medical practitioners and obstetricians. The primary audience also includes managers of maternal and child health programmes, and relevant staff in ministries of health and educational and training institutions, in all settings.
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WHO has issued a new recommendation on the length of bladder catheterization following surgical repair of a simple obstetric urinary fistula. Currently the length of catheterization is not standard and ranges from 5 to 42 days. The new guidance reco...mmends a 7–10 day period of bladder catheterization to allow complete healing. Longer periods of catheterization can be inconvenient for the woman, her family and care providers as it is associated with more discomfort and inconvenience. It also increases the risk of infection and erosion related to catheterization; requires more intensive nursing care and costs more per patient.
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The primary audience for the guideline is policy makers and health programme managers of MNCH and immunization programmes in ministries of health where decisions are made and policies created on the use and implementation of homebased records.
The guideline is also aimed at health providers ...lass="attribute-to-highlight medbox">who use home-based records as a tool for recording information and providing health education or communicating key information. Development and international agencies and non-governmental organizations that support the implementation of home-based records will also find this guideline of use.
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This report presents three scenarios on the impact of COVID-19 in Africa using economic growth forecasts, mortality and efforts to ameliorate impact through social grants. Likely effects are examined on per capita income, poverty and the attainment ...of selected Sustainable Development Goals targets. Africa’s development trajectory has suffered a severe setback, with extreme poverty rising in all the scenarios. The pandemic threatens Africa in several ways, and the report provides policy recommendations to reduce vulnerability and strengthen resilience.
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