HIV, viral hepatitis and STI epidemics, particularly among people who inject drugs and other key populations, continue to be fuelled by laws and policies criminalizing sex work; drug use or possession; diverse forms of gender expression and sexuality; stigma and discrimination; gender discrimination...; violence; lack of community empowerment and other violations of human rights. These sociostructural factors limit access to health services, constrain how these services are
delivered and diminish their effectiveness.
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Presentation on WASH in Malawi
There is an expanding market of no- and low-alcohol beverages (NoLos). However, their effects on global ethanol consumption and public health are still questioned. Policies and regulations about NoLos’ availability, acceptability and affordability are lacking and evidence about their benefits is l...imited. Concerns have been raised about the impact of NoLos in reducing alcohol consumption and its associated harm and the possible drawbacks and implications, such as misleading minors, pregnant women, abstainers or those seeking to stop drinking about their actual ethanol content. Further, there are concerns about the implications of NoLo branded products being displayed close to the brand’s main alcoholic beverages and their potential to subtly lead to new occasions of drinking. There is a need to monitor their consumption and impact on aggregated alcohol consumption to understand the public health implications of NoLos. The alcohol by volume content of NoLos must be defined, harmonised and clearly labelled. NoLo marketing needs to be regulated to protect children, pregnant women and those seeking to stop drinking. Fiscal and pricing policies to reduce the affordability of products with higher strengths of ethanol may favour a shift towards lower alcohol strength beverages.
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The chapter Closing the Gap: The Health Disparities of Older LGBTI People in the Americas, is part of the publication series titled ‘Decade of Healthy Aging: situation and challenges’. In order to outline the current knowledge available on the situation of health and well-being of older persons ...in the Americas at the beginning of the United Nations Decade of Healthy Aging (2021-2030), this document presents data and existing evidence different forms of discrimination and mistreatment older people face due to their sexual orientation and gender identities that ultimately increase health disparities. Previous studies on LGBTI older people offer valuable information on the lived experiences of these communities and demonstrate that they face unique challenges with aging, emphasizing the difficulties related to access to care. Very few studies on older people and aging include a focus on sexual orientation or gender identity; however, it is possible to point out that HIV/AIDS is one of the most significant health disparities confronting LGBTI older persons, followed by physical and mental health problems, substance use, social isolation, poverty, and the lack of access to quality healthcare, including long-term care facilities or other institutions. Closing the gap in access and quality of health and care services is an imperative to increase longevity, health status and quality of life of LGBTI older people.
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The chapter Fostering Health Systems’ Monitoring to Better Serve Older Populations is part of the publication series entitled Decade of Healthy Aging: Situation and Challenges. The publications are designed to favor the prioritization of effective actions at the local level as well as the monitori...ng of data and public health policies, and providing evidence-based information. Along with the objective of presenting the available updated knowledge about the situation of health and aging at the beginning of the Decade of Healthy Aging in the Americas, this publication gives information about health systems’ monitoring to better serve the needs of older adults and emphasizes the need for societies and health systems to better adapt to an aging population. It introduces the 360-tool as a guide to adapt health systems through monitoring tracers/indicators and highlighting the data and information that is readily available, disaggregated by age. This information can aid in decision-making and resource allocation to support older adults’ needs. Concerning the 360-tool development, a consensus has been reached on seven tracer indicators with high relevance to informing policy, and case studies in selected countries have assessed the feasibility of this approach. The list of indicators and the process related to the development of the tool are presented in this publication. The Decade of Healthy Aging 2021-2030 is a period to guide action towards the transformation of societies by fostering the inclusion of older people in every decision. This publication intends to contribute to this strategy and highlight the upcoming challenges and opportunities on healthy aging.
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The World Health Organization Regional Office for Africa (WHO AFRO), in accordance with recommendations from various WHO committees, has developed three flagship initiatives to support Member States in the African region to prepare for, detect and respond to public health emergencies. They are the r...esult of extensive consultations with more than 30 African government ministers, technical actors, and partners across the continent as well as regional institutions such as the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC), whose contributions have shaped the priority activities. This report provides the fourth quarterly summary of progress in implementing the flagship initiatives.
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The African Regional Convening of the Global Initiative to Support Parents (GISP) stimulated the interest or engagement of almost 1500 individuals from 742 unique organizations in the fields of health, education, social welfare, women’s affairs, early childhood, water and sanitation, mental health..., violence prevention, innovative finance, climate, and many others. The convening united representatives across governments, civil society organizations, programme implementers, philanthropies, multilateral organizations, bilateral funders, private companies, universities, schools and day care centres, and hospitals around the common cause of supporting parents and caregivers.
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Following the publication of Guidelines on certification of elimination of human onchocerciasis in 2001 by the World Health Organization (WHO), these are the first evidence-based guidelines developed by NTD Department according to the international standards. They provide a set of recommendations th...at would guide national programme managers in collaboration with their respective oversight committees on when to stop mass drug administration (MDA) and conduct post-treatment surveillance (PTS) activities for a minimum period of 3 to 5 year before confirming the interruption of transmission of Onchocerca volvulus parasite and hence its elimination. They also include steps to undertake for verification of elimination of transmission of the parasite in the whole endemic country by the International Verification Team (IVT) prior to the official acknowledgement by WHO Director General.
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The military offensive by the Russian Federation in Ukraine which began February 2022 has triggered one of the world’s fastest-growing displacement and humanitarian crisis, with geopolitical and economic ripples felt across the globe. The ongoing war has caused large-scale disruptions to the deliv...ery of health services and a near-collapse of the health system. But the crisis also saw an extraordinary mobilization and crisis response to a health emergency by WHO and its more than 100 partners.
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The Assessment package has been developed for countries to evaluate the implementation of the WHO Standards for prosthetics and orthotics. It enables identification of areas in need of strengthening and facilitates relevant planning. The complete Assessment package consists of four components: Asses...sment guide: gives directions on how to organize and implement the assessment. Assessment tool: Excel instrument used to carry out assessments and record results.
User manual: explains how the Assessment tool should be used.
Planning document: Excel file into which the recommendations that are generated by the Assessment tool can be pasted for easy use in subsequent planning.
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El presente informe incluye análisis de consultas informales en cinco de las regiones de la OMS: la Región de África, la Región de las Américas (donde se realizaron consultas separadas para el Caribe y América del Norte, y para América Latina), la Región de Asia Sudoriental, la Región de Eu...ropa y la Región del Mediterráneo Oriental, junto con tres foros en la Región del Pacífico Occidental. Se analizan las similitudes generales, los matices regionales y las prioridades planteadas en las seis regiones de la OMS para la participación significativa de las personas con experiencias vividas.
El presente informe es la segunda publicación de la serie «De la intención a la acción», un conjunto de recursos destinados a mejorar la limitada base de evidencia sobre el impacto de la participación significativa y abordar la falta de enfoques normalizados sobre cómo hacer operativa esta participación. La serie «De la intención a la acción» pretende llevar esto a cabo proporcionando una plataforma desde la que las personas con experiencias vividas, y los defensores de organizaciones e instituciones, puedan compartir soluciones, retos y prácticas prometedoras relacionadas con esta agenda transversal. La serie «De la intención a la acción» también tiene como objetivo proporcionar poderosas historias, inspiración y evidencia para la 4.ª Reunión de Alto Nivel de las Naciones Unidas sobre las ENT que se celebrará en 2025 y la consecución de los Objetivos de Desarrollo Sostenible (ODS) de las Naciones Unidas para 2030.
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2nd edition. This toolkit provides step-by-step guidance to NTD programme managers and partners on how to engage and work collaboratively with the WASH community to improve delivery of water, sanitation and hygiene services to underserved population affected by many neglected tropical diseases. The ...toolkit draws on tools and practices used in the delivery of coordinated and integrated programmes for control, elimination and eradication of NTDs. This second edition include revisions and new tools based on experiences of using the toolkit in more than 20 countries.
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This publication is a compendium of 49 country examples highlighting efforts in improving refugees’ and migrants’ health following the adoption of the WHO Global Action Plan on Promoting the health of refugees and migrants at the seventy-second World Health Assembly, in May 2019.
This report presents a framework to link science, policy and practice for a comprehensive assessment of climate mitigation and adaptation investments and their impact on human health.The framework proposes to use weather and climate data to forecast health impacts over time, as well as biophysical a...nd economic models to quantify the outcomes of investments in climate change adaptation and mitigation for relevant sectoral indicators and health co-benefits. It provides guidance on the economic valuation of health co-benefits of climate action, for inclusion in sector-specific cost–benefit analysis (CBA), including the spatial allocation of such costs and benefits.
The framework developed and presented in this study is comprehensive, and provides various entry points for different audiences, including decision-makers in the public and private sectors, researchers and scientists, working in the health sector as well as in other thematic areas and related sectors affected by climate action.
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Hand hygiene is vital for safe health care delivery, yet practices at the point of care remain suboptimal worldwide. A comprehensive research agenda is therefore necessary to improve our understanding of factors influencing hand hygiene behaviour and to strengthen appropriate interventions. This age...nda will provide insightful ideas for researchers to focus their projects and funding proposals and will direct donors towards the areas of hand hygiene evidence that require urgent support and innovation. It will also guide decision-makers and stakeholders at the national and international level and support country efforts in updating and strengthening hand hygiene promotion programmes. Global collaboration and investment in hand hygiene research remain essential to promote safe and effective care worldwide.
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Rebuilding Liberia’s health system is crucial for improving the country’s overall health outcomes. This annual report highlights key achievements, challenges,and lessons learned in implementing programmes of technical cooperation with the Government of Liberia from January to December 2022. T...he key achievements are summarized under the thematic areas of Universal Health Coverage, Health Emergencies and Corporate and Enabling Support.
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The Transformation Agenda (TA) ushered in an ambitious reform process intended to transform the World Health Organization (WHO) into an organization that is proactive, results-driven, accountable and which meets stakeholder expectations, towards transforming and improving public health services in t...he African Region. It aimed to achieve a WHO that is pro-results, which optimally and creatively targets technical work as well as make operations more responsive, with greater effectiveness in both communications and partnerships. The Africa Region has been the epicentre of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) epidemic and it’s one of the leading causes of disease and death on the continent. The WHO, with partners, has worked tirelessly for many years to control the threat and reduce the negative impact of the disease. Since the early 2000s, significant progress has been made in the global fight against the scourge of HIV. However, the WCA subregion was falling concerningly behind ESA on several key indicators of progress. In 2016, the WHO joined UNAIDS, UNICEF and other partners in a call for a strong and urgent response to support WCA countries to develop catch-up plans to triple and fast-track ART coverage, to enable the region to catch up with ESA by the end of 2020. Implementation of a widespread test-and-treat strategy, coupled with the scale-up of differentiated service delivery (DSD) and mobilization of requisite funding, accelerated WCA’s progress towards this goal. The HIV treatment catch-up and fast-track plan has achieved its target of seeing the West and Central African region (WCA) catch up with the Eastern and Southern African region’s (ESA) antiretroviral coverage rate of 78% in 2021, albeit later than the 2020 target time frame. A 33% improvement was achieved in WCA, against 21% in ESA, between 2015–2020. WCA achieved a significant 42% increase, compared to ESA’s 23%, between 2015 and 2021, to see WCA draw level with ESA at 78%. In the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) alone, progress of up to 47% was observed between 2015 and 2020, for example. In addition, 1.6 million more People Living with HIV (PLHIV) were enrolled on antiretroviral treatment (ART) between 2015 and 2020.
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This document outlines PAHO’s regional priorities for the year 2023 to sustain and scale up health emergency and humanitarian assistance in the Americas, with a focus on five priority countries currently facing a prolonged humanitarian crisis and recovering from recent acute emergencies: Colombia,... El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, and Venezuela (Bolivarian Republic of). These goals align with and build on the World Health Organization’s Global Health Emergency Appeal for 2023, its principles, priorities, and strategies.
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The Strategic Plan of Action and Budget 2016-2025 for the elimination of onchocerciasisin countries was prepared based on the above dlrective for the consideration of IAF 18.The vision of the plan of action is to eliminate onchocerciasis in 80 percent of Africancountries. Implementation of the plan ...will also help strengthen health systems at community level while implementing CDI wlll help scale-up interventions agalnst other NTDs to the benefit of the wider national health systems.
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This guideline provides evidence-informed guidance on the use of non-sugar sweeteners to reduce the risk of unhealthy weight gain and diet-related noncommunicable diseases in adults and children. The guidance in this guideline is not based on toxicological assessments of the safety of individual no...n-sugar sweeteners and is therefore not intended to update or replace guidance on safe or maximal levels of intake established by the Joint Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)/WHO Expert Committee on Food Additives (JECFA) or other authoritative bodies.
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