The latest update (28 January 2021) includes the following addition and revision:
biosafety aspects for working with antigen-detecting rapid diagnostic test;
handling new variants of SARS-CoV-2 in the laboratory;
updated assay decontamination before disposal;
personal protectiv...e equipment (PPE) for specimen collection;
addressing chemical hazards and their safe disposal; and
the fourth edition of the WHO Laboratory Biosafety Manual (LBM4) is now available and the terminology in this guidance was aligned with the LBM4.
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World Report 2021, Human Rights Watch’s 31st annual review of human rights practices and trends around the globe, reviews developments in more than 100 countries.
In his introductory essay, Executive Director Kenneth Roth calls on the incoming US administration to more deeply embed respect for ...human rights as an element of domestic and foreign policy to counter the “wild oscillations in human rights policy” that in recent decades have come with each new resident of the White House. Roth emphasizes that even as the Trump administration mostly abandoned the protection of human rights, joined by China, Russia and others, other governments—typically working in coalition and some new to the cause—stepped forward to champion rights. As it works to entrench rights protections, the Biden administration should seek to join, not supplant, this new collective effort.
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Oxfam’s report found that Covid-19 has the potential to increase economic inequality in almost every country at once, the first time this has happened since records began over a century ago. It sets out how a rigged economy is enabling a super-rich elite to amass wealth in the middle of the worst ...recession since the Great Depression, while billions of people are struggling amid the worst job crisis in over 90 years. Unless rising inequality is tackled, half a billion more people could be living in poverty on less than $5.50 (£4.00) a day in 2030, than at the start of the pandemic.
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Aviation plays an important role in humanitarian operations around the world, especially in countries where overland transport is difficult or impossible due to insecurity, damaged or inadequate infrastructure, and challenging climatic conditions. Aviation allows the transport of humanitarian aid wo...rkers and humanitarian cargo to communities in some of the world’s most inaccessible places.
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A Global Analysis of Antimicrobial Resistance and Its Drivers.
Since the first State of the World’s Antibiotics report in 2015, antimicrobial resistance has leveled off in some high-income countries but continues to rise in many low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), where access to antibiotic...s has risen with increases in gross domestic product per capita. Per capita antibiotic consumption in LMICs is lower than in high-income countries, despite a higher infectious disease burden; however, consumption rates are rapidly converging. These trends reflect both better access to antibiotics for those who need them and increases in inappropriate antibiotic use.
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The Handbook is a guide to the normative framework for humanitarian action and the operational approaches, coordination structures, and available tools and services that facilitate the mobilization of humanitarian assistance.
This report, written by ATAA Humanitarian Relief Association, BINAA for Development, Children Of One world, Hand in Hand for Aid and Development, Horan Foundation, Hurras Network, MARAM Foundation, Orange Organization, Syrian American Medical Society, Save the Children and Shafak Organization, provi...des insights on the humanitarian situation on the ground in north west Syria.
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Climate change and health vulnerability and adaptation assessment
In 2013 the World Health Organization (WHO) published the report Protecting health from climate change:
vulnerability and adaptation assessment. The aim was to provide basic and flexible guidance on conducting national or subnati...onal assessments of current and future vulnerability (the susceptibility of a population or region to harm) to the health risks of climate change, and of policies and programmes that could increase resilience, taking into account the multiple determinants of climate-sensitive health outcomes.
That guidance has been a very useful tool, applied to more than 50 countries and settings, and has helped countries to prepare their health contributions to United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change national adaptation plans.
Since the launch of the guidance, WHO, technical partners such as Health Canada, and countries have learned much in terms of its applicability in different countries, at national and local levels.
At the same time, knowledge on climate change and health has increased.
WHO, the Pan American Health Organization and Health Canada have produced this updated version, which aims to better support countries in their assessments by proposing a simpler tool that incorporates all lessons learned.
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Climate Change 2021: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
The frequency of infectious disease epidemics is increasing, and the role of the health sector in the management of epidemics is crucial in terms of response. In the context of infectious disease epidemics, the use of climate-informed early warning systems (EWS) has the potential to increase the eff...ectiveness of disease control by intervening before or at the beginning of the epidemic curve, instead of during the downward slope.
Currently, the initiation of interventions is heavily reliant on routine disease surveillance systems – data that often arrive too late for preventative response. However, forecasting of disease outbreaks using surveillance and weather information shows promising potential – there also remains further scope to examine seasonal climate forecasts. By combining these elements in new EWS based on computational models, it will be possible to improve both the timeliness and impact of disease control. The World Health Organization (WHO) is strengthening existing surveillance systems for infectious diseases to enable the development of more robust and timely EWS, which has resulted in the rapid development and innovation of EWS for disease outbreaks.
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What near-term climate impacts should worry us most?
Supporting the most exposed and vulnerable societies to reduce
regional and global climate risks
The Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health recognises that climate change
is an existential threat to the health and wellbeing of children and young people.
In October 2020, we joined national health and academic alliances to declare
climate change an emergency requiring accelerated col...laborative actions. This
position statement summarises our recommendations and activity about
mitigation and adaptation against the impact of climate change on children and
young people around the world.
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To support countries in adapting their response to different COVID-19 scenarios, the World Health
Organization (WHO) Department of Maternal, Newborn, Child and Adolescent Health and Ageing commissioned this scoping review of published and grey literature. The objective was to identify interventions... implemented to maintain the provision and use of essential services for MNCAAH during disruptive events and to summarize lessons learned during these interventions. The review included outbreaks of Ebola virus disease (EVD), severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), Zika virus disease (ZVD), the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, and natural disasters and humanitarian emergencies that caused disruption to services, transport and other activities.
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Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is a global threat that requires urgent
collaborative action within and among countries. As a result of the worldwide reports of the increasing rates of AMR to hospital and community-acquired infections and in the agricultural sector, the Global Action Plan on AMR was... adopted in 2015. T
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