The Global Health Security Agenda programme develops national capacity to prevent zoonotic and non-zoonotic diseases while quickly and effectively detecting and controlling diseases when they do emerge. The Emerging Pandemic Threats programme improves national capacity to pre-empt the emergence and ...re-emergence of infectious zoonotic disease and to prevent the next pandemic.
Action against emerging pandemic threats is taken through projects on: Avian influenza, Middle East respiratory syndrome, Africa Sustainable Livestock 2050 and Emergency equipment stockpile. With high-impact diseases that jump from animals to humans on the rise, these programmes are reducing the risk to lives and livelihoods from national, regional and global disease spread.
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2nd edition.
T The Compendium has been developed as a clear and concise instrument to facilitate the understanding and planning of delivery of high-quality care for everybody affected by TB. It incorporates all recent policy guidance from WHO; follows the care pathway of persons with signs or sympt...oms of TB in seeking diagnosis, treatment and care; and includes key algorithms and cross-cutting elements that are essential to a patient-centered approach in the cascade of TB care.
The Compendium is structured into 33 WHO standards and consolidates all current WHO TB policy recommendations into a single resource, with electronic links to the individual, comprehensive WHO policy guidelines
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MALAWI Food Security Outlook JUNE 2018 to JANUARY 2019
As the postharvest period continues, very poor and poor households in districts in the southern and central region will face Stressed (IPC Phase 2) outcomes from June to September. Most of these districts will transition to Crisis (IPC Pha...se 3) during the lean season from October to January, when food prices are at their highest and local cereal supplies are at their lowest. Drivers of the projected area outcomes include below-average access to income from casual labor opportunities and crop sales because of dryness and erratic rains during the 2017/18 cropping season, and above-average maize prices from November to January.
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Update - 27 June 2018
During the reporting week, the monsoon rains brought 252 mm of rainfall compared to 95 mm during the previous week. The downpour caused 65% of the week’s weather-related incidents (i.e. landslides, wind-storms and floods). Three rain gauges were installed in Chakmarkul (...near Camp 21), Camp 16 and Kutupalong, complementing existing rain gauges in Cox’s Bazar and Teknaf, as well as the Meteorological Station installed by Samaritan Purse in Camp 12. This network of rain gauges provides localized rainfall data at regular intervals throughout the day, which will allow the humanitarian community to better monitor, anticipate and respond to developments within the camps. Relocation of families at risk of landslides and flooding continued; a total of some 200 families have already moved to Camp 20 Extension and more than 100 families to Camp Extension 4. Repair of access roads, culverts, bridges and infrastructure is ongoing with continued attention to preparing for further heavy rains.
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The duration of breastfeeding and support from health services to improve feeding practices among mothers living with HIV
This operational guidance, developed by WHO, UNICEF and ENN, outlines the duration of breastfeeding and support from health services to improve infant feeding practices amon...g mothers living with HIV. It is intended to be used to complement emergency and sectoral guidelines on health, nutrition and HIV, including specifically infant feeding, prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV and paediatric antiretroviral treatment.
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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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This report is primarily intended for the community of policymakers and researchers concerned about the rising risks of domestic, regional, and global infectious disease epidemics, and the collective failure to take the coordinated actions required to reduce such risks. These risks include the expec...ted health, economic, and societal costs that are borne by countries, regions, and even all nations in the case of pandemics (which are worldwide epidemics). These risks also include the consequences of increasing antimicrobial resistance (AMR) and its spread within regions and globally. A necessary first step is to monitor whether a broad range of stakeholders are acting to prevent outbreaks from becoming epidemics, whether their capacities to respond to epidemics are robust, and whether preparedness to respond to pandemics and limit the resulting economic and health damage is improving. Analyzing the adequacy of these efforts is vitally important for the decisions of policymakers to invest in the public health and disaster-risk management capacities. Early and effective control of disease outbreaks prevents substantial health and economic costs whether or not the disease can spread globally and become a pandemic.
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A discussion paper on the scope of the problem, its drivers, and strategies for moving forward for policy, practice, and research
In many protracted emergencies, the prevalence rates of global acute malnutrition (GAM) regularly exceed the emergency threshold of > 15% of children with acute malnutri...tion (< -2 weight-for-height z-scores (WHZ) or with nutritional edema), despite ongoing humanitarian interventions. The widespread scale and long-lasting nature of “persistent GAM” means that it is a policy and programming priority.
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Vitamin A deficiency is a risk factor for blindness and for mortality from measles and diarrhoea in children aged 6–59 months. We aimed to estimate trends in the prevalence of vitamin A defi ciency between 1991 and 2013 and its mortality burden in low-income and middle-income countries.
Vitamin D deficiency is thought to be common among pregnant women, particularly during the winter months, and has been found to be associated with an increased risk of pre-eclampsia, gestational diabetes mellitus, preterm birth, and other tissue-specific conditions.
This guideline is intended for ...a wide audience including policy-makers, their expert advisers, and technical and programme staff at organizations involved in the design, implementation and scaling-up of nutrition actions for public health.
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The Asia Pacific Observatory on Health Systems and Policies is a collaborative partnership which supports and promotes evidence-based health policy making in the Asia Pacific Region. Based in WHO’s Regional Office for South-East Asia, it brings together governments, international agencies, foundat...ions, civil society and the research community with the aim of linking systematic and scientific analysis of health systems in the Asia Pacific Region with the decision-makers who shape policy and practice.
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Review of International, Regional and National Policies and Legal Frameworks that Promote Migrants and Mobile Populations' Access to Health and Malaria Services in the Greater Mekong Subregion (Cambodia, Lao People's Democratic Republic, Myanmar, Thailand and Viet Nam)
Migrants and mobile popul...ations face many obstacles in accessing equitable essential health care services due to factors such as living and working conditions, education level, gender, irregular migration status, language and cultural barriers, anti-migrant sentiments, and lack of migrant-inclusive health policies among others. Despite significant progress having been made in the context of malaria control in the Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS), human movements can impact malaria transmission patterns and potentially introduce drug-resistant parasites. This legal framework review therefore serves as a guidance document on approaches to address malaria and malaria elimination for migrant and mobile populations (MMPs) in five countries of the GMS.
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The document contains a set of indicators that can be used for monitoring traditional and complementary medicine (T&CM) systems in a country.
The core indicator set consists of 16 indicators that were considered essential and collectively able to provide information on T&CM inputs, processes and ou...tputs. A longer list of reference indicators is also available for countries that wish to monitor more indicators or that want to consider alternative metrics that would better suit each country’s T&CM situation, priorities and monitoring capacities.
Each core and reference indicator is accompanied by a set of metadata. This provides information on the indicator rationale, definitions, data elements (numerator, denominator and data disaggregation), frequency of measurement, and data sources. It is a guide towards more standardized data measurement as well as data interpretation.
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Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) has significantly helped in early diagnosis and commencement of specific interventions for diseases control. It also plays a critical role in understanding the disease epidemiology and unraveling the transmission dynamics of the disease. This manual intends to p...rovide primary guidelines to assist health lab personnel in developing countries to establish a PCR diagnostic facility for efficient support to patient care as well as public health actions.
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Conducted November 2011 to February 2012: Summary Report
This summary report has five sections. Following the introduction (Section 1), Section 2 sets out summary findings and recommendations of the assessment team. Section 3 describes the context in which artemisinin resistance is being tackle...d. Section 4 highlights key achievements and enabling factors for the response to artemisinin resistance, whilst Section 5 provides a more detailed discussion of major issues to be addressed.
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The publication conveys the quantitative surveillance results focusing on tobacco use and noncommunicable disease (NCD) related behaviours among youth (13–15 years) in Member States of the WHO South-East Asia Region, namely, the Global School-based Student Health Survey (GSHS) and the Global Youth... Tobacco Survey (GYTS). This publication contains selected indicators relating to tobacco use and other related risk behaviours of youth (aged 13–15 years) in Member States of the WHO South-East Asia Region. The tobacco indicators are mainly taken from GYTS and other indicators relating to risk behaviours (dietary behaviours, physical activity, alcohol use, drug use, mental health, violence and unintentional injury, sexual behaviours, protective factors and hygiene) are taken from GSHS. The latest findings from surveys conducted in Member States are presented in the publication.
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At the threshold of Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) era, this document captures the remarkable achievements by Member States towards achieving MDGs 4 and 5. It acknowledges new opportunities in the post-2015 phase shaped by the SDGs and the Global Strategy for women’s, children’s and adoles...cents’ health and presents an advanced state of preparedness in the Region. This also highlights the region’s renewed commitment for a more inclusive and more dynamic flagship action for ending preventable maternal, newborn and child mortality as well as to improve women’s, children’s and adolescents’ health and wellbeing in the South-East Asia Region.
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Oral diseases are among the most common chronic diseases worldwide and constitute a major public health problem due to the huge health and economic burden on individuals, families, societies, and health care systems. The recent emphasis on the role of determinants of health, common risk factors and ...their recognition in the context of the growing burden of noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) provides good opportunities for integrating oral health into NCD prevention and control efforts. This Strategy for oral health in South-East Asia, 2013-2020, presents guidance to Member States in developing national policy and action plans to improve oral health within existing socioeconomic, cultural, political and health system contexts. It expresses the consensus on major strategies in the area of oral health promotion as well as oral disease prevention and control for the South-East Asia Region aiming at reducing the health and socioeconomic burden resulting from oral diseases, reducing oral health inequities, and improving the quality of life of the population.
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Report of a regional workshop, New Delhi, India, 29–30 September 2014
To reduce the burden of cardiovascular disease and its subsequent problems, the WHO Regional Office for South-East Asia organized a regional workshop on sodium intake and iodized salt for Member States in the South-East Asi...a Region. The general objective of the workshop was to strengthen an integrated approach for sodium reduction and salt iodization programmes in the Member States of the Region. The specific objectives included reviewing the current sodium reduction and salt iodization strategies in the Member States of South-East Asia, provide training to the participants in standardized approaches for dietary estimation of salt/sodium and urinary iodine estimation.
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