Climate change, conflict, COVID-19, and gender inequality impacts food security globally. Together with the Ukraine conflict, the food crisis across the world is worsening. UN Women’s Zero Hunger Sustainable Development Goal Map shows that 49.7% of people are facing moderate or severe food insecur
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ity in Guatemala, 45.6% in Honduras, and 32.7% in Ecuador. Increasing prices of energy, fertilizer, and agriculture inputs are also raising the prices of food and food production.
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High prevalence of target diseases in rural and developing nations, increased prevalence of malnutrition across the globe, lack of hygiene and poor sanitation facilities, Migratory patterns of population, introduction of new chemical entity in the field of therapeutics, favorable government regulati
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ons, and increased R&D investments are key factors contributing to high CAGR of point of care diagnostics market during the forecast period.
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The Antimicrobial Resistance Benchmark has evaluated for the second time how the most important players in the antibiotic market are addressing the rise of resistance and the global need for appropr
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iate access to antibiotics. Although we can see progress — it’s hanging by a thread.
We have reached a tipping point where large and prominent drugmakers have retreated from the antibiotics field and smaller innovative biotech companies have gone bankrupt due to the poor financial rewards on offer.
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This second edition of the “living paper” contributes to the global knowledge on how countries are responding to the pandemic by documenting real-time actions in a key area of response – that is, social protection measures planned or implement
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ed by governments.
For the purpose of this review, we organized interventions by social assistance, social insurance and labor market programs. For the latter measures, we deliberately focused on supply-side programs (e.g., mostly wage subsidies and other activation programs). In most cases, data sources include official information published in government websites, while in many cases we reported information from global and national news outlets. In some cases, information was provided directly by country-based experts, while the full database was validated and integrated by regional and country social protection teams at the World Bank. Overall, findings should be considered preliminary and interpreted with caution.
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Entwicklungen und gegenwärtige Situationen der Covid-19-Impfstoffe
26 July 2021
During the pandemic, Brazil has provided its citizens with support in the areas of long-term care and disability, the labor market, social assistance, education, and pensions. This report focuses on two social policy areas, health-care and family be
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nefits (including labor policies), as these were the most crucial social policies implemented in Brazil during the Covid-19 pandemic in terms of the resources allocated and the magnitude of social impact. Brazil’s relatively generous social policies were uncoordinated with public health interventions, which contributed to poor compliance with these public health interventions. This suggests that social policy initiatives alone are insufficient in mitigating the social consequences of the pandemic. They need to be accompanied by and coordinated with public health measures, including regulations on testing, social distancing and mask wearing.
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The occurrence of a high percentage of couterfeit medicines on the global medicines market is often attributed to a lack of effective regulation and a weak enforcement capacity. This review, while f
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ocusing on counterfeit medicines and medical devices in developing countries, will present information on their impact and how these issues can be addressed by regulation and control of the supply chain using technology appropriate to the developing world.
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Response strategy for South Sudan to Covid-19 pandemic
conducted for the World Economic Forum
Progress report of the Human Rights Council Advisory Committee (A/HRC/33/53) (Advance edited version)
PlosOne January 20, 2021
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0241899
Antibiotic fixed dose combinations (FDCs) can have clinical advantages such as improving effectiveness and adherence to therapy. However, high use of potentially inappropriate FDCs has been reported, with implications for antim
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icrobial resistance (AMR) and toxicity.
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conducted for the World Economic Forum
In 2007, WHO warned that infectious diseases are emerging and re-emerging at a rate that has not been seen before. The potential for infectious diseases to spread rapidly results in high morbidity and mortality, causing a potential global public hea
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lth treat of major concern.
Several factors are contributing to the (re)emergence of infectious diseases such as population growth, living in close contact with animals, frequent travelling, poverty, destructive ecological changes due to economic development and land use and climate change result in global warming.
Especially Africa is at a threat for (re)emerging infectious diseases due to the huge population growth (expected to reach 2.5 billion by 2050) with rapid urbanisation. Additionally, people across and beyond the continent are excessively mobile which is combined with a weak health system. Moreover, the risk of (re)emerging infectious disease is further heightened by three newly adopted continental initiatives: African Continental Free Trade Area, Free Movement of Persons and African Passport and Single African Air Transport Market.
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There is an expanding market of no- and low-alcohol beverages (NoLos). However, their effects on global ethanol consumption and public health are still questioned. Policies and regulations about NoL
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os’ availability, acceptability and affordability are lacking and evidence about their benefits is limited. Concerns have been raised about the impact of NoLos in reducing alcohol consumption and its associated harm and the possible drawbacks and implications, such as misleading minors, pregnant women, abstainers or those seeking to stop drinking about their actual ethanol content. Further, there are concerns about the implications of NoLo branded products being displayed close to the brand’s main alcoholic beverages and their potential to subtly lead to new occasions of drinking. There is a need to monitor their consumption and impact on aggregated alcohol consumption to understand the public health implications of NoLos. The alcohol by volume content of NoLos must be defined, harmonised and clearly labelled. NoLo marketing needs to be regulated to protect children, pregnant women and those seeking to stop drinking. Fiscal and pricing policies to reduce the affordability of products with higher strengths of ethanol may favour a shift towards lower alcohol strength beverages.
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This global guidance provided the framework for over 100 countries to develop their NDVPs. This updated (second) version supersedes the previous version published in 16 November 2020. New information has been added on the following areas:
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e COVID-19 Partners Platform;
the use of COVID-19 simulation exercises to test deployment strategies;
the indemnity agreement and no-fault compensation programme for vaccines secured through the COVAX Facility in the Advance Market Commitment (AMC) eligible economies;
the availability and use of the WHO-UNICEF COVID-19 Vaccine Introduction and deployment Costing (CVIC) tool;
the COVAX Facility’s humanitarian buffer that enables allocation of vaccine to cover high-risk populations in humanitarian settings;
recommendations for vaccination of pregnant and lactating women;
supplementary information on infection prevention and control (IPC) measures to be used to deliver COVID-19 vaccines safely;
the WHO licensed COVID-19 vaccines product-specific information;
use of geospatial data and digital micro plans for equitable access and delivery of COVID-19 vaccines;
lessons learned from the development of NDVPs and early experiences in COVID-19 vaccine deployment in countries; and
updated additional resources at the end of each chapter.
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The global pandemic has highlighted fragility in international supply chains and the dependency of many African countries on imported personal protective equipment (PPE). Market pressures have also
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increased prices for imported supplies and put additional pressure on areas with limited resources for procurement. There is an urgent operational need to develop the domestic capacity to supply PPE from within the African continent. There is huge variation in Member
States industrial manufacturing capacity and the regulatory and testing capacity of government agencies at present. Growing number of companies, including micro- and small-medium enterprises, have responded by repurposing, albeit temporarily, to manufacture an assortment of PPEs. This workshop aims to bring together government representatives, industry, and subject matter experts on material testing and standards to promote the development of domestic production of safe and effective PPE made in Africa.
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