Nurses' perceptions about providing spiritual care
This is the ninth paper in our series, “Community Health Workers at the Dawn of a New Era”. Community health workers (CHWs) are in an intermediary position between the health system and the community. While this position provides CHWs with a good platform to improve community health, a major cha...llenge in large-scale CHW programmes is the need for CHWs to establish and maintain benefcial relationships with both sets of actors, who may have diferent expectations and needs. This paper focuses on the quality of CHW relationships with actors at the local level of the national health system and with communities.
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This publication is a companion document to the NDVP National Deployment and Vaccination Plans guidance, which provides a framework for countries to develop their national strategies. As countries face challenges with erratic vaccine supplies, use of multiple vaccine products with different charact...eristics, and the size of populations and their diversity, this document provides operational guidance and information to support planners and immunization programme managers at the national and sub-national levels on microplanning for COVID-19 vaccination implementation.
This Guide is available in English, French, Arabic, chinese, Portuguese, Spanish, Russian
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These WHO interim recommendations for use of the COVID-19 vaccine BIBP produced by Sinopharm were developed on the basis of advice issued by the Strategic Advisory Group of Experts on Immunization (SAGE) and the evidence summary included in the background document and annexes referenced below.
Th...is document has been updated: version 15 March 2022.
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The report identifies major global gaps in WASH services: one third of health care facilities do not have what is needed to clean hands where care is provided; one in four facilities have no water services, and 10% have no sanitation services. This means that 1.8 billion people use facilities that l...ack basic water services and 800 million use facilities with no toilets. Across the world’s 47 least-developed countries, the problem is even greater: half of health care facilities lack basic water services. Furthermore, the extent of the problem remains hidden because major gaps in data persist, especially on environmental cleaning.
This report also describes the global and national responses to the 2019 World Health Assembly resolution on WASH in health care facilities. More than 70% of countries have conducted related situation analyses, 86% have updated and are implementing standards and 60% are working to incrementally improve infrastructure and operation and maintenance of WASH services. Case studies from 30 countries demonstrate that progress is being propelled by strong national leadership and coordination, use of data to direct resources and action, and the mutual benefits of empowering health workers and communities to develop solutions together.
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For humanitarian organisations to respond effectively to complex crises, they require access to up-to-date evidence-based guidance. The COVID-19 crisis has highlighted the importance of updating global guidance to context-specific and evolving needs in humanitarian settings. Our study aimed to under...stand the use of evidence-based guidance in humanitarian responses during COVID-19. Primary data collected during the rapidly evolving pandemic sheds new light on evidence-use processes in humanitarian response.
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For most people in displacement contexts, there are simply not enough vaccines available in the places where they are hosted: 85% of refugees are hosted in lower- and middle-income countries, while in the first six months of this year 85% of vaccines went to wealthy countries; lower- and middle inco...me countries have still received only a fraction of the vaccine doses they require.3 Shortages in these countries can also pose particular risks to vaccination campaigns aimed at displaced populations, as they can result in them being deprioritized.
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What every clinician should know
The World Health Organization and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria are part of a group of agencies working together to accelerate progress towards the health-related SDGs through the Global Action Plan for Healthy Lives and Well-being for All. Understanding patterns of inequal...ities in these diseases is essential for taking strategic, evidence-informed action to realize our shared vision of ending the epidemics of HIV, TB and malaria.
This report presents the first comprehensive analysis of the magnitude and patterns of socioeconomic, demographic and geographic inequalities in disease burden and access to services for prevention and treatment.
The results confirm there have been improvements in service coverage and decreased disease burden at the national level over the past decade. But they also reveal an uncomfortable reality: unfair inequalities between population subgroups within countries are widespread and have remained largely unchanged over the past decade. For some disease indicators, inequalities are even worsening.
Moreover, the report points to the persistent lack of available data to fully understand inequality patterns in HIV, TB and malaria. Collecting data to improve the monitoring of inequalities in these diseases is vital to develop targeted responses for impact.
There are, encouragingly, isolated successes in reducing inequities. Change is possible when deliberate action is taken to reach disadvantaged populations.
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WHO is launching a “Revised edition, 2021” for the Caring for women subjected to violence: A WHO training curriculum for health-care providers today. The revised edition includes 4 new modules three of which are for health managers to assess and strengthen health facility readiness and one modul...e, which is for managers and providers to support prevention of violence against women. The earlier content published in 2019 remains unchanged. The 2021 edition is aimed at creating an enabling health systems environment for health workers to provide quality care to women subjected to violence.
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3rd edition. In 2001, Uganda adapted the Integrated Disease Surveillance and Response (IDSR) developed by World Health Organization (WHO) for member states in African region. The Ministry of Health has been implementing the IDSR strategy since then with success across the country. This strategy prov...ides the opportunity for rational use of resources and maximises investments in health surveillance systems. The 3rd edition IDSR guidelines incorporates lessons learnt from previous
epidemics, new frameworks like the Global Health Security Agenda (GHSA), One Health, Disaster Risk Management (DRM), the WHO regional strategy for health security and emergencies, and the rising non-communicable diseases, and aims to strengthen implementation of IHR (2005) core surveillance and response capacities. These guidelines have been adapted to reflect national priorities, policies and public health structures; and shall be used in conjunction with other similar
guidelines/strategies or initiatives.
Overall, the 3rd edition technical guidelines will incorporate the following:
• Strengthening Indicator Based Surveillance
• Strengthening Event Based Surveillance
• Improving community-based disease surveillance
• Improving Cross Border Surveillance and response
• Scaling up e-IDSR implementation
• Improving reporting and information sharing platforms
• Improved data sharing across sectors
• Tailoring IDSR to Emergency or Disaster contexts
The 3rd edition guidelines are intended for use as:
• A general reference for surveillance activities across all levels
• A set of definitions for thresholds that trigger some action for response
• A stand-alone reference for level-specific guidelines on surveillance and response
• A resource for developing training, supervision and evaluation of surveillance activities
• A guide for improving early detection and preparedness for outbreak response.
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The 2021 COVID-19 Strategic Preparedness and Response Plan (SPRP) for AFR serves as a regional guide for a holistic public health response to COVID‑19 at regional, national and sub-national levels. The 2021
SPRP:
1. Builds upon the lessons learnt from the implementation of the 2020 SPRP and outl...ines a regional preparedness, response and recovery strategy for COVID‑19.
2. Has been adapted to reflect the Regional context including COVID-19 vaccination. It also considers epidemiological changes and recommen-dations emerging from the evaluation report of the 2020 SPRP4.
3. Highlights to Member States strategic preparedness and response actions to be sustained at national and sub-national levels, as well as the critical inter-agency and partner support required.
4. provides the indicative resource requirements to reinforce WHO planned interventions in the African Region to enhance countries’ capacities to suppress transmission, save lives and mitigate the impact of the pandemic on people and health systems.
5. Provides a road map for mitigating potential resurgence in the Region as economies reopen and ensure country level continuity of other essential health services.
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The Infant and young child feeding counselling: an integrated course includes this Director’s guide, a Trainer’s guide and Participant’s manual. Additional tools include: Course handouts; Guidelines for follow-up after training; Supportive supervision/mentoring and monitoring and an accompanyi...ng toolkit; a slide set for the trainer; a set of 24 Counselling cards and Guidance on the use of counselling cards. The course includes 79 sessions arranged within 8 modules, covering a range of topics, including breastfeeding, complementary feeding, growth assessment and monitoring, HIV and infant feeding, and infant and young child feeding counselling. Course facilitators can decide which sessions to cover, depending on the specific learning needs of the health workers in your community.
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