The COVID-19 pandemic and in fact all crises – acute or prolonged – remind us that human rights need to be central in all recovery and development efforts. The Sustainable Development Goals will... only be achieved if we are able to create equal opportunities for all, address failures exposed and exploited by COVID-19, and apply human rights standards to tackle entrenched, systematic, and intergenerational inequalities, exclusion and discrimination.
We also share examples from Dorcas’ practice and formulate recommendations based on good practices of other organisations as well as our own. With this report, we aim to inform and inspire policy makers and humanitarian and development practitioners on inclusion of the rights of Older People in the current COVID-19 crisis, as well as others yet to come.
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The report highlights key trends and developments in laws affecting people living with HIV and key populations in Asia ...ghlight medbox">and the Pacific over the five-year period 2014–2019. It updates the legal and policy review conducted in 2016 for UNAIDS, UNDP and the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP). A database of laws of the 38 Member States of ESCAP was created as part of this review. The database identifies laws that are either punitive or enabling for people living with HIV and key populations in Asia and the Pacific.
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Community pharmacists are the health professionals most accessible to the public and are a cornerstone of primary health care. The role of community pharmacists is expanding globally. This report pr...ovides an overview of existing components and provisions of the legal and regulatory framework for community pharmacies and their activities in Europe. It presents the diverse approaches to community pharmacy licenses and to establishment of new pharmacies and their ownership. It also details the framework for community pharmacy operating requirements (including opening hours, workforce, premises and equipment, services provided and identification of a community pharmacy) and the types of activity undertaken. Provisions associated with possible alternative forms of dispensing medicines (over-the-counter medicines, prescription-only medicines, dispensing by medical doctors and online medicine sales) are also described
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The new treatment recommendations that extend the 2018 treat all recommendation for adults with chronic HCV infection to include adolescents and children<.../span> down to 3 years, and to align the existing recommended pangenotypic direct-acting antiviral (DAA) regimens (SOF/DCV, SOF/VEL and G/P) for adults, to those for adolescents and children. This alignment is expected to simplify procurement, promote access to treatment among children in low- and middle-income countries and contribute to global efforts to eliminate the disease
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This guideline consists of two main parts:
i.) Guidelines for Red Cross and Red Crescent national societies on how to start up and engage with ...other stakeholders in country in rolling out disaster risk reduction (DRR) education and awareness activities for children - not only in school, but also in the community;
ii.) Games and activities to engage children with key lessons and messages to carry away. With a focus on Southeast Asia, cases from Viet Nam and Indonesia are highlighted.
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This report finds that although Lebanese law bars schools from discriminating against children with disabilities, public and private schools exclude many ...children with disabilities. For those allowed to enroll, schools often lack reasonable accommodations, such as modifications to the classroom environment and curricula or teaching methods to address children’s needs. Schools also require the families of children with disabilities to pay extra fees and expenses that in effect are discriminatory.
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Integrated Management of Adolescent and Adult Illness
Integrated Management of Childhood Illness
Interim Guidelines for health workers at health centre or district hospital outpatient clinic
Introduction The novel Coronavirus (nCoV) epidemic in 2019 -2020 has recently emerged. The route of transmission is not totally known, although it is known that it can spread from person to person, and local health ...t medbox">care systems may be ill-equipped to handle a large-scale outbreak. Furthermore, misconceptions and misinformation about the disease often spreads rapidly in such epidemics.
In previous epidemics mental health and psychosocial support (MHPSS) has been identified as a key priority. MHPSS ensures the well-being of the affected populations, and counter-acts the threats to public health and safety that fear, stigmatization and misconception pose. Access to information, knowledge about the disease and how it spreads, make it easier for the affected to feel supported and calm, and to comply with instructions. Furthermore, psychosocial support to staff and volunteers help the operation as work conditions are extremely stressful.
This briefing note provides background knowledge on the MHPSS aspects related to nCoV and suggests MHPSS activities that can be implemented. The messages can be helpful for those in contact with patients or relatives and feel the strain of working and living during the epidemic. The briefing is aimed both at those working in any capacity with those affected by nCoV and for the MHPSS responders who implement MHPSS activities and interventions for everyone affected.
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These Course handouts have been designed for use by directors and trainers to aid in registering participants and evaluating trainers, ..."attribute-to-highlight medbox">and include job aids, answer sheets, forms, checklists and other tools for course participants to use during the training sessions. Items not supplied in the Course handouts but that are helpful to course participants and published elsewhere are provided through web links.
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This document provides an overview of strategic purchasing of nutrition services within primary health care. It introduces key terms and payment methods f...or countries to use in preparing to transform their health financial systems to scale up nutrition services. It does so by introducing nutritional perspectives to strategic health purchasing core areas: What to buy, From whom to buy and How to buy.
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WHO, in partnership with the International Society for Prosthetics and Orthotics (ISPO) and the United States Agency ...light medbox">for International Development (USAID), has published global standards for prosthetics 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 authors state that researchers, governments and global agencies should proceed with particular care in the evaluation of candidate SARS-CoV-2 vaccines in LMICs, with effective communication to b...uild trust and avoid generation of vaccine hesitancy. Vaccine efficacy is often highly variable between high-resource and low-resource settings
Archives of Disease in Childhood, vol.106 Issue 2
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The PHC STGs and EML should be used by healthcare workers providing care at clinics, community health centres, and gateway clinics at hospitals.
P...harmaceutical and Therapeutics Committees (PTCs) are responsible for ensuring the availability of medicines listed in the PHC EML at those facilities, as well as at higher levels of care.
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The aims of these guidelines are to provide guidance to health-care providers (i.e. the end-users of these guidelines: physicians, nurses, pharmacists and caregivers) on the adequate relief of pain ...associated with cancer. They also assist policy-makers, programme managers and public health personnel to create and facilitate appropriately balanced policies on opioids and prescribing regulations for effective and safe cancer pain management. Proper and effective stewardship of opioid analgesics in the cancer treatment setting is essential to ensure the safety of patients and to reduce the risk of diversion of medicine into society.
The goal of cancer pain management is to relieve pain to a level that allows for an acceptable quality of life.
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Summary of the main report: Direct and indirect effects of COVID-19 pandemic and response in South Asia .
It uses a series of exercises based on actual observed changes in services ...attribute-to-highlight medbox">and intervention coverage to model impacts on mortality, hospitalizations, and ICU admissions due to COVID-19. It also models the impact of nationwide stay-at-home orders to curb the spread of COVID-19 on maternal and child mortality, educational attainment of children, and the region’s economy. The study focuses on South Asia’s six most populous countries: Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka and makes the case for interventions and strategies to minimise these indirect consequences.
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Action on behalf of unaccompanied and separated children should be guided by principles enshrined in international standards. The validity of these principles has been confirmed by experience ...class="attribute-to-highlight medbox">and lessons learnt from conflicts and natural disasters in recent years. The objective of the present publication is to outline the guiding principles which form the basis for action in this regard.
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This publication summarizes the facilitators and barriers that will be encountered in the deinstitutionalization process and identifies useful and ...proven interventions in Latin American and Caribbean countries. Four areas of work are identified with the respective guidelines or suggestions for action, which should provide an operational guide for countries that are restructuring mental health services and moving toward the deinstitutionalization of psychiatric care.
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The guidance provides critical considerations and practical checklists to keep schools safe. It also advises national and local authorities on how to adapt ...">and implement emergency plans for educational facilities.
In the event of school closures, the guidance includes recommendations to mitigate against the possible negative impacts on children’s learning and wellbeing. This means having solid plans in place to ensure the continuity of learning, including remote learning options such as online education strategies and radio broadcasts of academic content, and access to essential services for all children. These plans should also include necessary steps for the eventual safe reopening of schools.
Where schools remain open, and to make sure that children and their families remain protected and informed.
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In South Africa, young women and girls are exposed to extremely high levels of gender-based violence (GBV) and HIV infection. Given the links betwe...en the two epidemics, it is important that HIV prevention programmes also address violence against women and children. The Global Fund’s Young Women and Girls (YWG) programme is a multi-pronged HIV prevention programme targeting young women and girls and was implemented in 10 districts in South Africa from April 2016 to March 2019. This briefing paper reports on the lessons learnt from a process evaluation of the child protection component of the programme
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Nutrition training of health and agriculture workers can help to reduce child undernutrition. Specifically, trained health extension workers cancontribute through frequent nutrition counselling of caregivers. Evidence from systematic reviews has sho...wed that providing nutrition training targeting health workers can improve feeding frequency, energy intake, and dietary diversity of children aged six months to two years. Scaling up of nutrition training for health and agriculture workers presents a potential entry point to improve nutrition status among childrenFood insecurity and nutrition deficiency are a common phenomenon in Ethiopia.
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