WHO, in partnership with the International Society for Prosthetics and Orthotics (ISPO) and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), has published global standards for prosthe
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tics and orthotics. Its aim is to ensure that prosthetics and orthotics services are people-centred and responsive to every individual’s personal and environmental needs. The standards advocate for the integration of prosthetics and orthotics services into health services, under universal health coverage. Implementation of these standards will support countries to fulfil their obligations under the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and towards the Sustainable Development Goals, in particular Goal 3: Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages.
The standards provide guidance on the development of national policies, plans and programmes for prosthetics and orthotics services of the highest standard. The standards are divided into two documents: the standards and an implementation manual. Both documents cover four areas of the health system:
policy (governance, financing and information);
products (prostheses and orthoses);
personnel (workforce);
and provision of services.
The Standards have been developed through consultation with experts from around the globe via a steering group, development group and external review group.
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The World Health Organization Regional
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Office for Africa (WHO AFRO), in accordance with recommendations from various WHO committees, has developed three flagship programmes to support Member States in the African region to prepare for, detect and respond to public health emergencies. They are the result of extensive consultations with more than 30 African government ministers, technical actors, 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 second quarterly summary of progress in implementing the flagship programmes.
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This document outlines why and how nurses and midwives are important, not only for individual health optimization but also to achieve the thematic priorities
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of For the Future. More specifically, it provides case studies to showcase the amazing work that nurses and midwives across the Region are doing to improve health. The document also provides future policy directions to strengthen the scope and leadership of the nursing and midwifery workforce, alongside actions to accelerate investment in their education, skills and employment.
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Working towards better COVID-19 outcomes in the WHO European Region.From the first COVID-19 cases in Europe reported on
24 January 2020, the pande
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mic reached 1 million cases
within 3 months, 10 million cases within 8 months, and
100 million cases in Europe alone within 2 years. Over
the course of its two years, COVID-19 has claimed over
1.6 million lives across Europe and Central Asia. The
World Health Organization (WHO) European Region has
accounted for close to a third of the cumulative global
COVID-19 cases and deaths.
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The current SEARVAP (South-East Asia regional vaccine action plan) describes a set of regional g
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oals and objectives for immunization and control of vaccine-preventable diseases for 2016 – 2020 and highlights priority actions, targets and indicators that address the specific needs and challenges of countries in the Region.
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Vaccines are powerful weapons in the fight against pandemic viruses as shown by responses to both the 2009 H1N1 influenza and the COVID-19 pandemic
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s. However, planning for accessing, allocating and deploying vaccines in a pandemic situation is a complex endeavour, beset with multiple challenges at all levels – local, regional and global. The World Health Organization (WHO) and its partners have prepared this revised guidance document to assist countries update their national deployment and vaccination plans (NDVPs) by leveraging global learnings from past pandemic responses, including the recent COVID-19 vaccination effort. The development and testing of a NDVP would not only advance pandemic preparedness efforts but would also have benefits in terms of increasing national capabilities to manage other health emergencies which require emergency vaccination campaigns.
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The emergence of multifrug-resistant malaria in the Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS) has been identified as an emergency issue that may have ca
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tastrophic consequences on the future of malaria elimination in the GMS as well as globally. In recognition of the need for a cohesive regional response, GMS countries have committed to a shared goal of eliminating malaria from the GMS by 2030 working within the framework of the Strategy for Malaria Elimination in the Greater Mekong Subregion 2015-2030. Population mobility has been identified as a key concern in the context of multidrug-resistant malaria; and in a region of highly porous borders where the majority of intra-Mekong migration occurs through informal channels, addressing the health needs of migrant populations has never been more critical.
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This guide is available in English, French, Spanish, Russian, Arabic and Chinese
This guide consolidates COVID-19 guidance for human resources for health managers and policy-makers at national, subnational and facility levels to design, manage and
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preserve the workforce necessary to manage the COVID-19 pandemic and maintain essential health services.
The guide identifies recommendations to protect, support and empower health workers at individual, management, organizational and system levels.
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Saving lives is the priority of WHO’s response in Ukraine. WHO works to ensure time-critical, lifesaving multisectoral assistance, non-discriminatory access to emergency and essential
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health services and priority prevention programmes, and laying the foundation for longer-term health systems recovery and strengthening.
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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
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‑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 outlines 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 WHO South-East Asia (SEA) Region bears a high burden of tuberculosis (TB) and MDR-TB. In 2015, the Region accounted for nearly 200
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000 or 35% of the global estimated new RR/MDR-TB cases eligible for treatment. Extensively drug-resistant TB (XDRTB) has also been reported from six countries of the SEA Region. MDR-TB could potentially replace drug-susceptible TB, and constitutes a threat to global public health security. The South- East Asia Regional Response Framework for DR-TB 2017–2021 complements the Ending TB in the South-East Asia Region: Regional Strategic Plan 2016–2020” and outlines key strategies for reducing morbidity, mortality and transmission of DR-TB.
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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
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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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The document summarizes the infrastructure and activities for Ebola virus disease (EVD) preparedness that are already in place in the Gambia and id
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entifies opportunities for improvement to strengthen the nation’s readiness in the event of an EVD incident.
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Despite being a curable and preventable disease, tuberculosis (TB) remains as one of the major challenges for health systems, globally. Every year,
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TB affects more than 10 million people and kills more than 1.4 million people. WHO’s Digital Health for the End TB Strategy – an Agenda for Action outlines a conceptual framework in which advantageously positioned digital health solutions are matched to the most urgent needs of TB programmes. Video-supported treatment is a component of one of the four core functions of this framework, the Patient Care domain, and primarily supports the first pillar of the End TB Strategy. This quick guide provides information on the solutions available for asynchronous modes of video communication and how these can be of use to TB programmes.
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More than two years since the first SARS-CoV-2 infections were reported, the COVID-19 pandemic remains an acute global emergency. In this Strategic Preparedness, Readiness and Response plan for 2022
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, WHO sets out a number of key strategic adjustments that, if implemented rapidly and consistently at national, regional, and global levels, will enable the world to end the acute phase of the pandemic.
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The brief concludes that sustaining the continuity of EHS requires policies that ensure a whole-society and systems strengthening approach. This in
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volves increased health care investment, community engagement, disease control regulations, and multisector approaches to improve resilience, EHS quality, and equity.
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The target audience of this document (and the associated online companion tool) includes WHO country offices
in Member States
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of the African Region; Member States’ ministries of health and their public health emergency
operation centres; relevant external assessment teams; and partners looking to identify preparedness gaps and
support interventions that help address them. In the event of a suspected or confirmed VHF case, the document also serves to provide any intervening partner with a sense of what structures should be in place, in order to guide
scale-up activities in line with regional and national plans.
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