In the course of implementing a recently funded network of hubs for building capacities in mental health service development, training, and research (RedeAmericas), the peer support workers are bein...g introduced into the mental health workforce in three Latin American countries for the very first time. They will be part of a team, along with community mental health workers, that provides a modified Critical Time Intervention to individuals with severe psychiatric disorders living in the community. This article reviewed the background of this increasingly widespread development, and discussed its merits, as well as potential obstacles within local contexts.
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Africa is off track to reach the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030 and lags behind in building resilient health systems
and health security, against a backdrop of limited resources. The world envisaged a significant role ...to-highlight medbox">for governments
in funding the Sustainable Development Agenda, but inadequate funding for health in African countries is
persistent, despite additional continental commitments to address the problem. When commitments to global health
targets and available fiscal space do not align, innovation is warranted.
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For the 24th consecutive year, PAHO has published the report Health Situation in the Americas: Core Indicators featuring the latest information on key indicators for the Region of the Americas. This... 2018 edition includes data on the 82 core indicators for the countries, territories, and sub regions of the Americas, grouped into the following categories: demographic-socioeconomic, health status, risk factors, service coverage, and health systems. Information is also presented on 22 indicators of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
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For the primary health worker in a low/middle-income country (LMIC) setting, delivering quality primary care is challenging. This is often complicated by clinical guidance that is out of date, inconsistent and informed by evidence from high-income c...ountries that ignores LMIC resource constraints and burden of disease. The Knowledge Translation Unit (KTU) of the University of Cape Town Lung Institute has developed, implemented and evaluated a health systems intervention in South Africa, and localised it to Botswana, Nigeria, Ethiopia and Brazil, that simplifies and standardises the care delivered by primary health workers while strengthening the system in which they work. At the core of this intervention, called Practical Approach to Care Kit (PACK), is a clinical decision support tool, the PACK guide. This paper describes the development of the guide over an 18-year period and explains the design features that have addressed what the patient, the clinician and the health system need from clinical guidance, and have made it, in the words of a South African primary care nurse, ‘A tool for every day for every patient’. It describes the lessons learnt during the development process that the KTU now applies to further development, maintenance and in-country localisation of the guide: develop clinical decision support in context first, involve local stakeholders in all stages, leverage others’ evidence databases to remain up to date and ensure content development, updating and localisation articulate with implementation.
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The Access to Controlled Medications Programme identified the development of treatment guidelines that cover the treatment of all types of pain as one of the core areas of focus for improving acces...s to opioid analgesics. Such guidelines are interesting both for health-care professionals and policy-makers. They are also important in improving access to controlled medicines for determining when those opioid medicines and when non-opioid medicines are preferred.
Based on a Delphi study, WHO planned the development of three treatment guidelines, covering chronic pain in children, chronic pain in adults and acute pain.
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Between 2012 and 2016, development assistance for HIV/AIDS decreased by 20·0%; domestic financing is therefore critical to sustaining the response to HIV/AIDS. To understand whether domestic resour...ces could fill the financing gaps created by declines in development assistance, we aimed to track spending on HIV/AIDS and estimated the potential for governments to devote additional domestic funds to HIV/AIDS.
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Promoting and protecting health is essential to human welfare and sustained economic and social development. This was recognized more than 30 years ago by the Alma-Ata Declaration signatories, who noted that Health ...t medbox">for All would contribute
both to a better quality of life and also to global peace and security
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This revision to the Disaster Management Team’s (DMT) multi-sector response plan for COVID-19 is meant to align the multi-sector plan with the Department of Health’s COVID-19 Emergency Response ...Plan issued on 24 April 2020.
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Barriers to HIV Services and Treatment for Persons with Disabilities in Zambia
The 80-page report documents the obstacles faced by people with disabilities in both the community and healthcare settings. These include pervasive stigma and discrimina...tion, lack of access to inclusive HIV prevention education, obstacles to accessing voluntary testing and HIV treatment, and lack of appropriate support for adherence to antiretroviral treatment. The report also describes the sexual and intimate partner violence women and girls with disabilities face, and the need for the government and international donors to do more to ensure inclusive and accessible HIV services.
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Access to health workers who are fit for purpose, motivated and protected is a fundamental force of health service delivery and the achievement of universal health coverage and the health and health-related Sustainable ...light medbox">Development Goals. Data and knowledge of the distribution, skill mix and future development needs of the health workforce can mean the difference between enabling or impeding health systems performance, inclusive economic growth and global health security preparedness and response
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The Country Cooperation Strategy is the World Health Organization (WHO)’s reference for country work guiding planning and resource allocation through alignment with national health priorities and harmonization with other ...highlight medbox">development partners. It clarifies roles and functions of WHO in supporting the national strategic plan for health through the Sector-Wide Approach and Malawi Growth and Development Strategy II. The Country Cooperation Strategy is based on a systematic assessment of the recent national achievements, emerging health needs,
challenges, government policies and expectations. An evaluation of the previous CCS was conducted and jointly discussed with the Ministry of Health as well as other key stakeholders. This process led to the identification of the, achievements, challenges and shortfalls of the previous CCS. Through this process the areas where WHO needed to focus on were also identified. The CCS development has also been done in parallel with the formulation of the new Health Sector Strategic Plan (HSSP) to ensure that there is a linkage between the two.
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The aim of this document is to provide interim guidance for interventions to reduce the risk of maternal Zika virus infection and to manage potential complications during pregnancy. This guidance is based on the best available research evidence and ...covers areas prioritized by an international, multidisciplinary group of health care professionals and other stakeholders. Specifically, it presents guidance for preventing Zika virus infection;antenatal care and management of women with infection; and care during pregnancy for all pregnant women living in affected areas, with the aim of optimizing health outcomes for mothers and newborns.
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Nepal has performed exceptionally in improving reproductive, maternal and child health outcomes over the past two decades. In this article, we discuss these achievements and outline a vision for the future of maternal, newborn and child survival in ...Nepal after the era of the Millennium Development Goals. On the pathway towards quality universal health care services for all, we propose strengthening of health information systems, gradual health system reforms, improvement of existing facility based services, development of integrated service delivery models, improved technical and managerial capacity at district and facility levels. Elimination of all preventable causes of maternal, newborn and child deaths in Nepal should be our collective aspirational goal.
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The purpose of this handbook is to provide guidance to Member States on the practical aspects of maintaining sanitary standards at international borders at ports, airports, and ground crossings (points of entry) as set out in the ...ute-to-highlight medbox">International Health Regulations (2005). It provides technical advice for developing a comprehensive programme for systematic monitoring of disease vectors and integrated vector control at points of entry. This includes standardizing procedures at points of entry and ensuring a sufficient monitoring and response capacity with the necessary infrastructure for surveillance and control of vectors. In addition, this handbook to serves as reference material for port health officers, regulators, port operators, and other competent authorities in charge of implementing the IHR (2005) at points of entry and on conveyances.
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"This is the final report of the six-year collaboration between the WHO Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse and the Gulbenkian Global Mental Health Platform, an initiative of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation aimed at reducing the globa...l burden of mental health through the development and application of evidence and good practices to global mental health."
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Music therapy can help traumatized children and adults to stabilize and to create a safe space for the expression of feelings and thoughts. In a 1 day international symposium on Friday May 26, prese...nting lectures and workshops, we’ll highlight the way music therapy research, methods and techniques are applied to treating childhood trauma and sexual abuse, traumatized refugees, prisoners and victims of violence.
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The Committee discussed the implications for preparedness for smallpox-like events reflected by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. The Committee noted how quickly diagnostics and vaccines could be devel...oped and deployed when resources and political will were abundant. This rapidity was also due to the fact that the genetic sequence of the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) had been shared worldwide. It was noted that in one country SARS-CoV-2 had been reconstructed in a laboratory from the viral genome sequence before the first case of COVID-19 had been reported, highlighting the benefits of synthetic biology technologies for accelerated development of diagnostics as well as the oft-described potential risks. Lessons learned about clinical care during the COVID-19 pandemic were also discussed.
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This document was prepared by UNICEF Regional Office for West and Central Africa, under the leadership of Christophe Valingot and the review of Joachim Peeters (WASH Specialist) and Arnaud Laillou (Nutrition Specialist), on behalf of the WASH Region...al Group and the Nutrition Regional Group.
This WASH - Nutrition strategic guidance note for West and Central Africa builds on the precedent WASH-in-NUT strategy elaborated in 2012 and is the regional outcome of a multiyear collaborative work conducted at country level between 2018 and 2022, in Mali, Niger, Nigeria Chad, Burkina Faso. This work is based on a strong multi-partner collaboration, involving national technical directorates of the water and sanitation sector as well as technical directorates of Health and Nutrition, civil society organizations, national and international NGOs as well as United Nations agencies.
This document can serve as a technical and strategic guide for any partner wishing to strengthen the intersectorality of WASH-Nutrition programmes. It presents the regional WASH & Nutrition context, a brief review of the latest scientific evidence, and proposes an integrated WASH-Nutrition programming framework adapted to the regional context of West and Central Africa. Beyond the implementation of programmes, this document also calls for the explicit and concrete inclusion of WASH-Nutrition integration into national policy documents.
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This National Food and Nutrition Policy developed in 2013 builds on several achievements that have improved the status of nutrition and household food security in Rwanda during the past six years. The outlines ambitious but necessary strategies needed to solve serious and
persistent problems includ...ing the high prevalence of child stunting and high levels of anaemia in children and women. The NFNP also takes into account major differences in the economic development environment and the higher national and international priority placed on improving nutrition and related household food security problems in the second decade of the new millennium compared to 2007 when the country’s first National Nutrition Policy was adopted.
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The overall objective of this implementation plan is to define the strategy for implementation of the Xpert MTB/RIF test for rapid detection of TB and rifampicin (RIF) resistance in Tanzania, within... the context of the National Tuberculosis and Leprosy Programme (NTLP) strategic plan and other national health guidelines. It is intended to serve as the main guiding document for national, regional and local programme managers, clinicians, coordinators, laboratory staff and other health workers; national and regional reference laboratories; local and international implementing partners; and donors involved in TB control.
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