The Federal Centre for Health Education (BZgA) emphasizes the critical role of drug prevention in enhancing public health in Germany. Annually, the country faces significant premature mortality due to substance
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use: at least 110,000 deaths from smoking, 40,000 from harmful alcohol consumption, and approximately 1,300 from illicit drug abuse.
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The recommendations in these guidelines promote the use of simple, non-invasive diagnostic tests to assess the stage of liver disease and eligibility for treatment; prioritize treatment for those with most advanced liver disease and at greatest risk
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of mortality; and recommend the preferred use of nucleos(t)ide analogues with a high barrier to drug resistance (tenofovir and entecavir, and entecavir in children aged 2–11 years) for first- and second-line treatment. Recommendations for the treatment of HBV/HIV-coinfected persons are based on the WHO 2013 Consolidated guidelines on the use of antiretroviral drugs for treating and preventing HIV infection, which will be updated in 2015.
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Q1: Are brief psychosocial interventions for people using cannabis or psychostimulants effective in reducing drug use, dependence and harm from drug
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use?
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Antibiotics have been a critical public health tool since the discovery of Penicillin in 1928, saving the lives of millions of people around the world. In developing country like ours, where the burden of treatable disease is very high and access to health facilities and laboratories is difficult, a
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ntibiotics have long acted as miracle drugs. Today, however, the emergence of drug
resistance in bacteria is reversing the miracles of the past eighty years, with drug choices for the treatment of many bacterial infections becoming increasingly limited, expensive, and in some cases, nonexistent. Diseases previously regarded as relatively easy to manage are much harder to treat as doctors must use “last-resort” drugs that are more costly, take longer to work
and are often unavailable or unaffordable in developing countries. Moreover, regular prescription of antibiotics, random treatment, over the counter sales, inadequate dosage, inclusion of antibiotics in animal feeds and agriculture has contributed equally to emergence of antibiotics resistance as silent epidemic within the country.
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Estimated annual number of deaths from alcohol and drug use disorders per 100,000 people. These include only direct deaths from thesedisorders, meaning they do not include suicide deaths which can i
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n some cases be connected or attributed to them.
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Tuberculosis (TB) is, and should be, a curable disease; however, each year significant numbers of patients acquire or develop drug-resistant TB, which has a much lower cure rate. Patients with drug
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-resistant TB have a high prevalence of symptoms; hence, staff caring for these patients should have some familiarity with palliative care, so that general palliative care principles are available to all patients. The timely identification, and addressing, of adverse events occurring during the treatment course is considered as general palliative care for those receiving curative treatment. This publication summarizes the general palliative care approach, which is recommended for use in settings and services that occasionally treat palliative care patients, but do not provide palliative care as the main focus of their work. The review focuses on 18 high TB priority countries of the WHO European Region.
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This paper looks at the increasing use of 'new psychoactive substances', a term which is defined differently by different people, but which is here defined as 'narcotic drugs or psychotropic substances made available or used from the early to mid-20
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00s for their psychoactive properties'
Series: Series|Drug Use| Volume 394, ISSUE 10209, P1668-1684, November 02, 2019
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Multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) and extensively drug-resistant
tuberculosis (XDR-TB) increasingly occur in resource-constrained settings.
In the context of a national response to MDR- and XDR-TB, health workers in
TB clinics (in distric
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t hospitals and some accredited health centres) will need
to diagnose MDR-TB, initiate second-line anti-TB drugs, and monitor MDRTB
treatment.
Management of MDR-TB: a field guide was created to help health workers
carry out these tasks. It is a job aid that medical officers and TB nurses
are meant use frequently during the day for quick reference. This module
is closely related to other clinical guideline modules in the Integrated
Management of Adolescent and Adult Illness (IMAI) series. In particular, the
approach to chronic disease management is taken from General principles
of good chronic care in the IMAI series.
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The drugs issue cuts across the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and multiple Sustainable Development Goals, including ending poverty, reducing inequalities, and, of course, improving health, with its targets on drug
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use, HIV, and other communicable diseases. Goal 16 on peace, justice, and strong institutions is particularly important, requiring attention to human rights across the Sustainable Development Goals. Since the late 1990s, United Nations (UN) General Assembly resolutions have acknowledged that ‘countering the world drug problem’ must be carried out ‘in full conformity’ with ‘all human rights and fundamental freedoms’.1 This has been reaffirmed in every major UN political declaration on drug control since, and in multiple resolutions adopted by the Commission on Narcotic Drugs.2 The reality, however, has not always lived up to this important commitment.
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Disease burden is measured in Disability-Adjusted Life Years (DALYs) – both from years of life lost due to premature death and years lived witha disability. One DALY equals one year of healthy life.
The Updated guidelines on Management of tuberculosis in children and adolescents include new recommendations that cover diagnostic approaches for TB, shorter treatment for children with non-severe drug-susceptible TB, a new option for the treatment
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of TB meningitis, the use of bedaquiline and delamanid in young children with multidrug- and rifampicin-resistant TB and decentralized and family-centred, integrated models of care for TB case detection and prevention in children and adolescents.
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The purpose of this document is to stop to irrational use/ over prescription of this reserve/
experimental/ emergency use authorisation d
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rug Remdesivir. For this reason, Joint
Monitoring Group under Chairmanship of DGHS took into consideration findings of the
following studies to issue this advisory:
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Antibiotic Stewardship (AS) is a coordinated program that promotes the appropriate use of antimicrobials to improve patient outcomes, reduce microbial resistance, and decrease the spread of multi-drug
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resistant organisms. In clinical settings, stewardship activities focus on measuring and improving how antibiotics are prescribed by clinicians and used by patients. Improving antibiotic prescribing involves implementing effective strategies to modify prescribing practices to align them with evidence-based recommendations for diagnosis and management.
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Barbados currently has a rudimentary framework and capacity to address the issue of antimicrobial resistance. There however needs to be coordination of efforts and improvement in areas where gaps have been identified.Actions required include improved antibiotic stewardship in healthcare settings, pr
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evention of the spread of drug-resistant organisms//bacteria, elimination of the use of medically-important antibiotics for growth promotion in food animals, and expanded surveillance for drug-resistant bacteria in humans and animals.
The National Action Plan will provide the roadmap to guide Barbados in the effort to address the urgent and serious threat of AMR and will be organized around three goals for collaborative action.
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Ivermectin is an antiparasitic drug approved for the treatment of parasitic infections, including strongyloidiasis and onchocerciasis in humans. There is a reported increase in the use of ivermectin
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for the prevention and treatment of COVID-19 by the public in African Union Member States.
Currently, there is:
1. No scientific evidence from pre-clinical studies on the therapeutic effect of ivermectin for the management of COVID-19;
2. No evidence of its clinical efficacy for the management of patients with asymptomatic, mild, moderate or severe COVID-19; and
3. No safety data regarding the use of ivermectin for COVID-19 in the majority of the published studies.
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MICROBIAL DRUG RESISTANCEVolume 24, Number 5, 2018ªMary Ann Liebert, Inc.DOI: 10.1089/mdr.2017.0383
Antibiotic resistance (ABR) is a worldwide publichealth concern, with serious health, economic, and so-cietal repercussions. Its emergence is att
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ributed to the se-lective pressure exerted by antibiotic use in the community, hospitals, veterinary health, agriculture, aquaculture, and the environment. Additionally aggravating the situation is the fact that very few new antibiotics have recently been produced by pharmaceutical companies. It is widely acknowledged that food animals are key reservoirs of antibiotic-resistant bacteria and that antibiotic usage in this population favors the emergence, selection, and spread of resistance among animals and humans, both through zoonoses (infectious diseases trans-mitted between animals and humans) and the food chain.
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