Nationally, Senegal met the MDG target for water supply access. It did this by engaging the public and private sectors to effectively invest and report on investments. It focused on larger population centers, less on remote regions of the country. Its achievements set the stage for more equitable an...d widespread service provision as the country now works to achieve the SDGs, requiring sustainable management of universal access. This case study documents the progression of the sector between 1990 and 2015, and analyzes the impact of local systems created in Senegal to respond to the water and sanitation challenge.
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The study sought to understand the factors that facilitate women to adhere to treatment and return to health facilities for routine care from their own perspective. The researchers focused on Malawi, Uganda and Zambia, early adopters of the global guidance to provide lifelong treatment for pregnant ...women living with HIV (Option B+) and spoke to women living with HIV, healthcare workers and programme managers to discover which factors and practices show promise in supporting women to initiate and remain in care.
This study found that women living with HIV who access these services to prevent vertical transmission have a strong sense and understanding of what factors support their retention and how health facilities, the wider community and their friends and relations can best support them. This report shares their words to describe how it feels to walk in their shoes on the path of life long treatment.
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With the goal of ending viral hepatitis as a public health threat by 2030, the Regional Action Plan will provide an actionable framework for implementing evidence-based interventions at scale. It will be informed through strategic monitoring of the response, that must be equitable and sustainable an...d allow for innovations for acceleration and reaching out to all in need with health services. A major reduction in prices of newer drugs to potentially cure hepatitis C offers an added opportunity to work towards its elimination.
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This toolkit consists of eight modules which have been prepared as stand-alone documents that can be read by themselves, but they have also been prepared to complement one another. It has been designed as a tool for health professionals and students in the health care and public health sectors who ...want to engage more directly on the issue of climate change as educators with their patients, peers and communities, and/or as advocates for the policies, programs and practices needed to mitigate climate change and/or prepare for climate change in their workplaces and communities
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A role for nuclear techniques
Antimicrobials play a critical role in the treatment of human and animal (aquatic and terrestrial) diseases, which has led to their widespread application and use. Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is the ability of microorganisms to stop an antibiotic, such as an antimic...robial, antiviral or antimalarial, from working against them. Globally, about 700 000 deaths per year arise from resistant infections as a result of the fact that antimicrobial drugs have become less effective at killing resistant pathogens. Antimicrobial chemicals that are present in environmental compartments can trigger the development of AMR. These chemicals can also cause antibiotic-resistant bacteria (ARB) to further spread antibiotic resistance genes (ARG) because they may have an evolutionary advantage over non-resistant bacteria.
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The threat posed by antimicrobial resistance (AMR) to public health as well as global health security has been reiterated in umerous World Health Assembly (WHA) resolutions. AMR is also prioritized under the Global Health Security Agenda (GHSA), and India is one of the contributing countries. The Mi...nistry of Health & Family Welfare (MoHFW) identified AMR as one of the top 10 priorities for the ministry’s collaborative work with WHO. The National Health Policy 2017 identifies antimicrobial resistance as a problem and calls for effective action to address it. An international conference on AMR – “Combating Antimicrobial Resistance: A
Public Health Challenge and Priority”, was jointly organized by the Government of India and World Health Organization (WHO) in February 2016, which was attended by more than 350 participants. The Hon’ble Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi, and the Hon’ble Union Minister for Health, Shri J.P. Nadda have reiterated government’s commitment to tackle AMR.
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Healthcare-associated infections (HAI) are a significant burden globally, with millions of patients affected each year. These infections affect both high- and limited-resource healthcare settings, but in limited-resource settings, rates are approximately twice as high as high-resource settings (15 o...ut of every 100 patients versus 7 out of every 100 patients). Furthermore, rates of infections within certain patient populations are significantly higher in limited-resource settings, including surgical patients, patients in intensive-care units (ICU) and neonatal units. It is well documented that environmental contamination plays a role in the transmission of HAIs in healthcare settings. Therefore, environmental cleaning is a fundamental intervention for infection prevention and control (IPC).It is a multifaceted intervention that involves cleaning and disinfection (when indicated) of the environment alongside other key program elements to support successful implementation (e.g., leadership support, training, monitoring, and feedback mechanisms). To be effective, environmental cleaning activities must be implemented within the framework of the facility IPC program, and not as a standalone intervention. It is also essential that IPC programs advocate for and work with facility administration and government officials to budget, operate and maintain adequate water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) infrastructure to ensure that environmental cleaning can be performed according to best practices.
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What recommendations did the assessment produce?
• Developing guidelines and plans to further the process of SRH and Hiv integration.
• Training stakeholders at different levels of the health system on how to integrate activities.
• Establishing mechanisms for collaboration/coordinati...on on SRH and Hiv at different levels.
• Developing plans for SRH and Hiv integration that include: situation analysis; feasibility studies; assessment of needs for reorganizing and reorienting services towards better integration; necessary tools (e.g. job descriptions, work plans); and tools to evaluate service quality and user satisfaction in relation to integration.
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Nosocomial infections, or hospital-acquired infec-tions (HAI), are among the most significant causesof morbidity and mortality in healthcare settingsthroughout the world.Prevention of HAIs iscentral to providing high quality and safe health-care, even in settings with limited resources.Transmi...ssion of infectious agents between patientsby health workers and irrational use of antibioticsare two important preventable factors involved inmany HAIs.
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The present National action plan on antimicrobial resistance (AMR) with component of antimicrobial consumption (AMC) covering both human and agriculture sectors was developed based on the World Health Organization's (WHO) Global plan on AMR dated 2015. With the purpose to develop this plan, in May 2...016 an intersectoral and interagency working group was established under coordination of the State Sanitary and Epidemiological Surveillance Service (SSESS), the Ministry of Health and Social Protection of Population (MoHSPP) of the Republic of Tajikistan. With technical as- sistance from the WHO a number of seminars, consultation meetings and workshops were conducted to identify country's priority areas and required actions for AMR con- tainment and AMC and control.
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- Interim guide: May 2020 update.
On the 25th of March, the GPEI circulated the first update of the 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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The 2014–2015 Ebola outbreak was catastrophic in West Africa but the indirect impact of increasing the mortality rates of other conditions was also substantial. The increased number of deaths caused by malaria, HIV/AIDS, and tuberculosis attributable to health system failures exceeded deaths from ...Ebola.
With a relatively limited COVID-19 caseload, health systems may have the capacity to maintain routine service delivery in addition to managing COVID-19 cases. When caseloads are high, and/or health workers are directly affected, strategic adaptations are required to ensure that increasingly limited resources provide maximum benefit for the refugees and surrounding host population. The following are key considerations for UNHCR operations on prioritized health care services in the event of a COVID-19 outbreak. These are based on WHO Guidance for Maintaining Essential Health Services and UNHCR guidance for operations and where relevant operation or site level outbreak preparedness and response plans.
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This Interim Guidance outlines how key public health and social measures needed to reduce the risk of COVID-19 spread and the impact of the disease can be adapted for use in low capacity and humanitarian settings. The recommendations outlined here need to be adjusted to the scale of transmission, co...ntext and resources, in order to achieve the objective of managing COVID-19, namely to reduce transmission and facilitate the detection and management of infected and exposed individuals within the population. The Guidance is intended for humanitarian and development actors of all operational levels working with communities ocal authorities involved in COVID-19 preparedness and response operations in these settings, in support of national and local governments and plans. Additional considerations for support to residents of urban informal settlements and slums are available in Annex 1.
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For COVID-19, as for many infectious diseases, the true level of transmission is frequently underestimated because a substantial proportion of people with the infection are undetected either because they are asymptomatic or have only mild symptoms and thus typically fail to present at healthcare fac...ilities. There may also be neglected or under-served segments of the population who are less likely to access healthcare or testing. Under-detection of cases may be exacerbated during an epidemic, when testing capacity may be limited and restricted to people with severe cases and priority risk groups (such as frontline healthcare workers, elderly people and people with comorbidities). Cases may also be misdiagnosed and attributed to other diseases with similar clinical presentation, such as influenza.
Differences in mortality between groups of people and countries are important proxy indicators of relative risk of death that guide policy decisions regarding scarce medical resource allocation during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. This document is intended to help countries estimate CFR and, if possible, IFR, as appropriately and accurately as possible, while accounting for possible biases in their estimation
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The purpose of this document is to address specific needs and considerations for essential oral health services in the context of COVID-19 in accordance with WHO operational guidance on maintaining essential health services. This interim guidance is intended for public health authorities, chief dent...al officers at ministries of health and oral health care personnel working in private and public health sectors. The document may be subject to change as new information becomes available.
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Interim guidance. 12 May 2021. The Continuity of essential health services: Facility Assessment Tool can be used by countries to rapidly assess the capacity of health facilities to maintain the provision of essential health services during the COVID-19 pandemic. It can help to alert the authorities ...and other stakeholders about where service delivery and utilization may require modification and/or investment. This assessment tool covers the following aspects of essential health services:
health workforce (numbers, absences, COVID-19 infections, health workforce management, training and support);
financial management and barriers;
service delivery and utilization (facility closures, changes in service delivery, community communication campaigns, changes in service utilization and catch-up strategies);
IPC capacities (protocols, safety measures, guidelines and the availability of personal protective equipment (PPE) for staff);
availability of therapeutics, diagnostics and supplies, and vaccine readiness; and
provision of COVID-19 primary care services.
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Policy Brief.
Our understanding of how to diagnose and manage Long COVID is still evolving but the condition can be very debilitating. It is associated with a range of overlapping symptoms including generalized chest and muscle pain, fatigue, shortness of breath, and cognitive dysfunction, and the ...mechanisms involved affect multiple system and include persisting inflammation, thrombosis, and autoimmunity. It can affect anyone, but women and health care workers seem to be at greater risk.
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These guidelines for the prevention and management of cardiovascular diseases are a critical ingredient for streamlining care across the entire health services provision continuum. They are a strategic component in achieving universal health coverage, securing affordable heal...th care and improving the livelihood of all Kenyans which in turn will guarantee a healthy nation working towards sustainable development and prosperity.These guidelines bring to the fore the need for availability of skilled human resource, sustained adequate funding and partnership building at all levels of governance. It provides clear roles for health workers at the different levels of our devolved system which will ensure a harmonized referral system with basic cardiovascular diseases treatment services available closest to the people while decongesting the county and national referral facilities.
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USAID funded/ Primary Health Care Project in Iraq (PHCPI) in cooperation with Iraqi Ministry of Health (MOH) aims to promote Primary Health Care (PHC) services provided by Primary Health Care Clinics (PHCCs) in Iraq in order to achieve the development goal in enhancing the PHC provision system throu...gh achieving the following results: First: Enhancing management and operations systems, which support clinical care. Second: Improving the quality of the delivered PHC according to quality standards. Third: Enhancing and expanding local community participation and partnership in PHC. Maintaining the medical & service devices in the hospitals and health clinics besides making them function according to the adapted standard specifications, lead to providing most efficient medical services for people and accomplish the purposes for which they were invented. Maintenance and repair of facilities and infrastructure, and keeping them safe and clean are also of the important approaches for the results referred to in (first) and (second) above. This can be achieved through enhancing and developing facilities, and medical & service devices management. This guideline seeks to develop work mechanism for engineers, technicians and the PHCCs’ facilities and medical & service equipment maintenance workers; clarify the concept of maintenance, its importance and classifications in health area, its planning and implementation, the tasks and duties of other directorates and departments of the Ministry in relation to all kinds of maintenance. Add to that preparing documents and forms, which are used in documenting and monitoring the steps required to be accomplished in the maintenance of PHCCs’ facilities and medical & service equipment, for the equipment to perform the best possible services for people and get their satisfaction.
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4 August 2021. Currently, Pfizer BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine COMIRNATY® (Tozinameran) is the only COVID-19 vaccine that should be stored and transported at -60ºC to -86ºC ultra-low temperature (ULT) conditions. Prior to use the vaccine can be transferred to -20ºC freezer or +2-8ºC refrigerator at... the lower store levels and immunization service points. However, vaccine shelf life is affected when vaccine is transferred to a different storage temperature. Health workers in charge of managing the storage, transport and administration of the vaccine should be well trained to maintain vaccine quality. Good cold chain planning, strong management of vaccine supply, logistics and distribution, including installation and effective monitoring and evaluation of the performance of the storage equipment and infrastructure, are also necessary.
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