24 Nov. 2021; This guidance provides considerations and a series of options that can be used to inform country strategies to minimise risk associated with shortages of personal protective
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equipment (PPE).
Re-use and reprocessing of single use PPE must be a last-resort temporary measure that is implemented only until stocks are replenished (2).This remains an area of active research and further updates to this evidence base are anticipated.
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Interim guidance 2 February 2021 . Available in Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Ukranian, Russian
Health workers are at the front line of the COVID-19 outbreak response and as such are exposed to different hazards that put them at risk. Occupational hazards include exposure to SARS-CoV-2 and othe
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r pathogens, violence, harassment, stigma, discrimination, heavy workload and prolonged use of personal protective equipment (PPE). This document provides specific measures to protect occupational health and safety of health workers and highlights the duties, rights and responsibilities for health and safety at work in the context of COVID-19.
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23 February 2021
This document describes the medical devices required for the clinical management of COVID-19, selected and prioritized according to the latest available evidence and interim guidelines. This includes: oxygen therapy, pulse oximeters, patient monitors, thermometers, infusion and suc
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tion pumps, X-ray, ultrasound and CT scanners as well as personal protective equipment. In order to facilitate access to quality assured priority medical devices, the document also includes technical and performance characteristics, related standards, accessories and consumables. It is intended for policy-makers and planning officers in Ministries of Health, procurement and regulatory agencies, intergovernmental and international agencies as well as the medical device industry.
This document is an update to the List of priority medical devices for COVID-19 case management and Technical specifications for invasive and non-invasive ventilators for COVID-19.
This document complements the Technical specifications of personal protective equipment for COVID-19.
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The WHO COVID-19 Essential Supplies Forecasting Tool (COVID-19-ESFT) is meant to help countries forecast essential supplies for their COVID-19 response including personal protective
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equipment (e.g., masks and gloves), biomedical equipment for case management (e.g., ventilators and oxygen concentrators), diagnostic reagents and equipment, essential drugs for supportive care, and consumable medical supplies.
The tool is best suited for estimating essential supply needs over a short time period (12 weeks or fewer) but can be used for longer.
COVID-19-ESFT does not quantify or account for resources already available locally or those pending delivery. When using the ESFT to inform procurement, we recommend factoring in resources already available locally and only including the additional resources required in the forecast.
This tool is updated regularly so users should monitor the website for the latest release version.
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he app has a new feature that deploys augmented reality (AR) technology to help health workers address a critical challenge that many face every day during the pandemic – staying free of infection while they care for patients. This 20-minute course demonstrates the proper techniques and sequence
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to put on and remove personal protective equipment (PPE), which are critical to keeping health workers safe.
With content in seven languages – Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Portuguese, Russian and Spanish – the app focuses on providing health workers with critical, evidence-based information and tools to respond to the pandemic.
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Una de las muchas desigualdades de género en el personal sanitario y asistencial que COVID-19 ha puesto de manifiesto es la relativa al ajuste y el diseño de los equipos de protección individual (EPP). La rápida aparición y la escala de COVID-1
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9 condujeron a la escasez de EPP en la mayoría de los países, causando infecciones y mortalidad prevenibles entre los trabajadores de la salud y otros en primera línea. A pesar de que la mayoría de los trabajadores sanitarios son mujeres, las especificaciones de fabricación de los EPI médicos suelen estar elaboradas en función del cuerpo masculino y se han registrado muchos casos de EPI no diseñados para el cuerpo de las mujeres. El WGH emprendió un proyecto de investigación global para documentar los retos a los que se enfrentan las trabajadoras sanitarias.
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One of the many gender inequities in the health and care workforce that COVID-19 has exposed is around the fit and design of Personal Protective Equipment
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(PPE). The rapid onset and scale of COVID-19 led to shortages of PPE in most countries, causing preventable infection and mortality among healthcare workers and others on the front lines. Even though most health workers are women, manufacturing specifications for medical PPE are usually drawn up based on the male body and there have been many reports of PPE not designed for women's bodies. WGH undertook a global research project to document the challenges women health workers have faced.
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This guidance provides considerations and a series of options that can be used to inform country strategies in managing any shortages of personal protective
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equipment.Re-use and reprocessing of single-use PPE must be a last resort temporary measure to be adopted until stocks are replenished. The WHO and other agencies are currently conducting research about this and further guidance will likely become available soon.
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Arabic Version of COVID-19 Guidance on use of personal protective equipment for different clinical settings and activities
Interim guidance 2 February 2021 . Available in Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Ukranian, Russian
Health workers are at the front line of the COVID-19 outbreak response and as such are exposed to different hazards that put them at risk. Occupational hazards include exposure to SARS-CoV-2 and othe
...
r pathogens, violence, harassment, stigma, discrimination, heavy workload and prolonged use of personal protective equipment (PPE). This document provides specific measures to protect occupational health and safety of health workers and highlights the duties, rights and responsibilities for health and safety at work in the context of COVID-19.
more
COVID-19: occupational health and safety for health workers: interim guidance, Interim guidance 2 February 2021
Health workers are at the front line of the COVID-19 outbreak response and as such are exposed to different hazards that put them at risk. Occupational hazards include exposure to SARS-C
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oV-2 and other pathogens, violence, harassment, stigma, discrimination, heavy workload and prolonged use of personal protective equipment (PPE). This document provides specific measures to protect occupational health and safety of health workers and highlights the duties, rights and responsibilities for health and safety at work in the context of COVID-19.
more
One of the many gender inequities in the health and care workforce that COVID-19 has exposed is around the fit and design of Personal Protective Equipment
...
(PPE). The rapid onset and scale of COVID-19 led to shortages of PPE in most countries, causing preventable infection and mortality among healthcare workers and others on the front lines. Even though most health workers are women, manufacturing specifications for medical PPE are usually drawn up based on the male body and there have been many reports of PPE not designed for women's bodies.
more
The WHO COVID-19 Essential Supplies Forecasting Tool (ESFT) assists governments, partners, and other stakeholders to forecast the necessary volume of personal protective
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equipment, diagnostic equipment, consumable medical supplies, biomedical equipment for case management, and essential drugs for supportive care and treatment of COVID-19. The tool provides the user with a choice among several epidemiological methods for forecasting COVID-19 cases, including an integration with Imperial College’s Susceptible-Exposed-Infectious-Removed (SEIR) model.
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These guidelines outline the minimum operational guidance for infection prevention and control (IPC) in ambulances transferring suspected or confirmed COVID-19 patients. Ambulance staff should be trained in the procedures outlined here as part of their induction and prior to starting work. They are
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to be supported by their operating organization with available personal protective equipment (PPE) and cleaning materials. These guidelines are subject to adaptation according to the specific operational context. Standard infection control precautions must be used with all patients.
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N95 or equivalent respirators are single-use personal protective equipment (PPE) designed for use by health workers that provide direct care to pat
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ients with diseases transmitted by aerosols or during aerosol generating procedures (AGP) for patients with acute respiratory disease, as is the case of COVID-19. • Given the current shortage of N95 and equivalent respirators, the World Health Organization (WHO) has suggested the possibility of their extended use by the same individual for up to 6 hours or the reprocessing of respirators when necessary.
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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;
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personal protective 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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This tool is designed to help governments, partners, and other stakeholders to estimate potential requirements for essential supplies to respond to the current pandemic of COVID-19. Although it gives users with an estimation of the number of cases, this calculator is not an epidemiological calculato
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r.
The focus of this tool is to forecast essential supplies: it includes estimation of personal protective equipment, diagnostic equipment, biomedical equipment for case management, essential drugs for supportive care, and consumable medical supplies.
The COVID-19 ESFT tool is intended to be complimentary to the Health Workforce tools (Adaptt and the Workforce Estimator). Both tools use the same base clinical attack rate ranges and classify health workforce using ILO ISCO codes, but their outputs are intentionally different due to their primary focus.
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Steps on how to safely collect oral swabs (saliva) from deceased patients suspected to be infected with Ebola: before entering patient’s room, how to put on and remove personal protective
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equipment (PPE), how to collect oral swab from deceased patient and how to prepare VTM collection tube for transport.
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