In one of his final essays, statesman and former United Nations secretary general Kofi Annan said, ‘Snakebite is the most important tropical disease you’ve never heard of’. Mr. Annan firmly be...lieved that victims of snakebite envenoming should be recognised and afforded greater efforts at improved prevention, treatment, and rehabilitation. During the last years of his life, he advocated strongly for the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the global community to give greater priority to this disease of poverty and its victims.
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Ending the epidemics of HIV, tuberculosis and malaria by 2030 is within reach, but not yet fully in our grasp.
With only 11 years left, we have no time to waste. We must step up the fight now.
Case Studies on Building Resilience in the Horn of Africa
This paper introduces a new dataset of official financing—including foreign aid and other forms of concessional and non-concessional state financing—from China to 138 countries between 2000 and ...2014. We use these data to investigate whether and to what extent Chinese aid affects economic growth in recipient countries. To account for the endogeneity of aid, we employ an instrumental-variables strategy that relies on exogenous variation in the supply of Chinese aid over time resulting from changes in Chinese steel production. Variation across recipient countries results from a country’s probability of receiving aid. Controlling for year- and recipient-fixed effects that capture the levels of these variables, their interaction provides a powerful and excludable instrument. Our results show that Chinese official development assistance (ODA) boosts economic growth in recipient countries. For the average recipient country, we estimate that one additional Chinese ODA project produces a 0.7 percentage point increase in economic growth two years after the project is committed. We also benchmark the effectiveness of Chinese aid vis-á-vis the World Bank, the United States, and all members of the OECD’s Development Assistance Committee (DAC).
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with special reference to prevention and control of avian influenza
Globally, levels of hunger remain alarmingly high. In 2021, they surpassed all previous records as reported by the Global Report on Food Crises (GRFC), with close to 193 million people acutely food insecure and in need ...light medbox">of urgent assistance across 53 countries/territories, according to the findings of the GRFC 2022. This represents an increase of nearly 40 million people compared to the previous high reached in 2020 (reported in the GRFC 2021).
Download Full Report here: https://www.fsinplatform.org/sites/default/files/resources/files/GRFC%202022%20Final%20Report.pdf
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This report, examining the mood of a country that holds the top spot in the Fragile States Index, is based on field research conducted in South Sudan in April and May 2014.
The new five-year agenda of WHO in Africa, The Africa Health Transformation Programme, 2015–2020: a vision for universal health coverage, is the strategic framework that will guide WHO’s contribution to the emerging sustainable development platf...orm in Africa. It articulates a vision for health and development that aims to address the unacceptable inequalities and inequities that have kept our region lagging far behind others in terms of health indices and enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of life.
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treat TB
Description of Research Outputs, 2009 - 2014
IN THE AMOUNT OF SDR 21.8 MILLION (US$30 MILLION EQUIVALENT) WITH AN ADDITIONAL GRANT FROM THE GLOBAL FINANCING FACILITY (GFF) IN THE AMOUNT OF US$ 10 MILLION TO THE DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC ..."attribute-to-highlight medbox">OF CONGO FOR A HUMAN DEVELOPMENT SYSTEMS STRENGTHENING PROJECT
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The UNICEF-GAIN Partnership Project
The report notes that iodine deficiency is a leading cause of preventable brain damage worldwide. Insufficient iodine during pregnancy and infancy results in neurological and psychological deficits, reducing... a child’s IQ by 8 to 10 points. This translates into major losses in the cognitive capital of entire nations and thus their socio-economic development.
The report outlines urgent steps to reduce the risk of mental impairment to babies’ growing brains:
• Integrate salt iodization into national plans to support children’s nutrition and brain development in early childhood;
• Align salt iodization and salt reduction agendas;
• Establish surveillance systems to identify unreached populations;
• Strengthen regulatory systems to enforce existing legislation on salt iodization;
• Recognize the growing importance of fortified foods as potential sources of iodized salt.
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Data on the essential building blocks of mental health systems, including mental health
governance, financing, service delivery, human resources and information, are reported. For
mental health planning, it is important to know not only the level ...of resources in these six areas,
but also how those resources are being organized and utilized. Thus, data on efficiency, access,
equity, linkages with other sectors and respect for human rights are reported as well.
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At least half of the world’s population does not have full coverage of essential health services. Health expenses push more than 100 million people into extreme poverty each and every year, forcin...g them into terrible choices that no one should ever have to make: Buy medicine or food? Education or health care? These stark statistics make the case for universal health coverage compelling.
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The overall objective of the Global Action Plan is to enhance collaboration among 12 global organizations engaged in health, development and humanitarian responses to accelerate country progress on the health-related SDG targets. The Plan presents a... new approach to strengthening collaboration among and joint action by the organizations, building on an initial joint commitment made in October 2018. The Plan is primarily intended to be strategic but provides some operational detail to guide implementation while also allowing flexibility for adjustment based on regular reviews of progress and learning from experience. Although the purpose of the Global Action Plan is not to provide or seek additional resources, the Plan will enable better use of existing resources as a result of improved collaboration, recognizing that each agency has its own unique mandate and area of expertise.
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The education sector forms an important part of the child protection response in refugee settings, and UNHCR’s Education Strategy (2012-16) reflects a focus on refugee education as a core component of...pan> UNHCR’s protection mandate. The right to education for all children also forms part of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. UNHCR’s Education Strategy promotes the importance of schools as safe learning environments, emphasises improving access to quality education for refugee children and maximises the protective benefits of participation in school. It advocates for the integration of refugee children into national education systems.
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This report describes findings from a telephone survey with 1,323 people conducted in February 2021. The survey examined how people respond to public health and social measures (PHSMs) to prevent COVID-19. The sample is representative of households ...with access to a landline or cell phone, but does not include people without access to phones. As phone penetration varies by country, findings should be interpreted with caution.
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13 May 2021
To avoid a reversal of progress from the adverse impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, new knowledge and lessons from successful programmatic innovations are urgently needed to improve TB p...revention and care. Experience can provide evidence for innovative approaches and strategies to maintain and scale up high-quality TB services. WHO therefore called for case studies on programmatic innovations that address emerging challenges in TB prevention and care during the pandemic in order to collect and disseminate the findings to the TB community. Between November 2020 and February 2021, a total of 23 case studies relevant to the call were accepted from 19 countries in the six regions of WHO. The lessons learnt from these country activities to ensure the continuity of essential services like TB care in the face of the crippling crisis may also inform strategies for minimizing the impact of future emerging pathogens on health services.
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The unparalleled action needed to combat unprecedented inequality in the wake of COVID-19.
New billionaire minted every 26 hours, as inequality contributes to the death of one person every four sec...onds
Available in English, French, Spanish and Arabic https://www.oxfam.org/en/research/inequality-kills
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During the year 2022, COVID-19 continued to be a significant challenge in Eritrea as in many other countries across the world. As COVID-19 devastated communities around the world, WHO worked with the MoH to strengthen the National and Sub-National health systems in order to meet community needs and ...mitigate the devastation during the pandemic and beyond.
One of the major achievements in the year 2022 was the beginning of the journey towards validation of
the elimination of mother to child transmission of HIV, syphilis, and hepatitis B. This is the culmination of years
of commitment and determination by the political leadership, national and international partnerships to
reduce the associated indices to levels that qualify for elimination.
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Severe Acute Malnutrition (SAM) is one of the greatest child survival challenges in the world today and
reportedly affects more than 16.2 million children each year1. High impact, proven treatment interventions exist
yet sadly approximately only 3....2 million children with SAM have access to treatment each year2. Thus, there
is a need to scale up interventions to improve coverage and access across high burden countries. While efforts
are currently underway to expand services in many countries, obstacles remain.
One critical barrier to expanding SAM treatment services is the acceptance, accessibility and utilisation of
ready-to-use therapeutic food (RUTF). In some countries and contexts, RUTF is still not fully accepted by
community members; while other countries face problems with procurement, storage and supply chain
management which impact on availability and use3. Reports from Ghana and Zambia highlighted that stock-
outs and logistical challenges are often noted as key contributors to high default rates in outpatient treatment
centres4.
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