This publication aims to provide examples of better palliative care practices for older people to help those involved in planning and sup...porting care-oriented services most appropriately and effectively. Examples have been identifi ed from literature searches and from an international call for examples through various organizations, including the European Association of Palliative Care and the European Union Geriatric Medicine Society. Some examples consider how to improve aspects within the whole health system; specifi c smaller examples consider how to improve palliative care education, support in the community, in hospitals or for specifi c groups of people, such as people in nursing homes and people with dementia and their families. Some examples await rigorous evaluation of effectiveness, and more research is needed in this fi eld, especially the cost–effectiveness and generalizability of these initiatives.
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Female Genital Schistosomiasis (FGS) is a gynaecological disease caused by Schistosoma haematobium, a parasitic worm that is acquired by skin contact with freshwater contaminated by schistosome cerceriae. Communities in which the infection is most e...ndemic have limited access to clean water and healthcare services. Up to 150 million adolescent girls and women are estimated to be at risk of FGS and about 16–56 milion womens are living with FGS, with the majority of these in sub-Saharan Africa. The variability of these estimates points to the fact that this neglected tropical disease is not well studied and frequently not prioritized by local, regional, and global health policy makers.
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An essential participant in antimicrobial stewardship who has been unrecognized and underutilized is the“staff nurse.”Although the role of staff nurses has not formally been recognized in guidel...ines for implementing and operating antimicrobial stewardship programs (ASPs) or defined in the medical literature, they have always performed numerous functions that are integral to successful antimicrobial stewardship. Nurses are antibiotic first responders, central communicators, coordinators of care, as well as 24-hour monitors of patient status, safety, and response to antibiotic therapy. An operational analysis of inpatient admissions evaluates these nursing stewardship activities and analyzes the potential benefits of nurses’formal education about, and inclusion into, ASPs.
Clinical Infectious Diseases - CID 2016:62 (1 January)•CLINICAL PRACTICE
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Natural disasters often increase morbidity and mortality rates. Taking appropriate measures to maintain environmental health helps to reduce or eliminate the risks ...t medbox">of preventable disease and death. Such measures contribute not only to the health of individuals in and near disaster-stricken areas, but they also contribute to decreasing the high costs of providing emergency health services in the aftermath of disaster.
This document is divided into several parts. The first section primarily addresses the effects of natural disasters on environmental health conditions and services. In the second section, environmental health measures are described that should be undertaken in each of three time frames: the predisaster, disaster, and postdisaster periods.
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The National Disaster Management Plan (NDMP) provides a framework and direction to the government agencies for all phases ...-highlight medbox">of disaster management cycle. The NDMP is a “dynamic document” in the sense that it will be periodically improved keeping up with the emerging global best practices and knowledge base in disaster management. It is in accordance with the provisions of the Disaster Management Act, 2005, the guidance given in the National Policy on Disaster Management, 2009 (NPDM), and the established national practices.
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Despite the significant role of vector control in national leishmaniasis control programmes, the programmatic community perceives vector control as the weakest component ...ghlight medbox">of leishmaniasis control strategies in terms of resources, scientific evidence of the usefulness of interventions and capacity for quality-assured implementation. Therefore, the main objective of this manual is to provide practical tools, techniques and procedures to strengthen sand fly control and surveillance in order to improve implementation of leishmaniasis control programmes. The manual provides a rationale for programme managers in different geographical regions on the types of vector control interventions to be used in different epidemiological and environmental settings and also how to measure their impact.
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The African Regional Convening of the Global Initiative to Support Parents (GISP) stimulated the interest or engagement of almost 1500 individuals from 742 unique organizations in the fields ...lass="attribute-to-highlight medbox">of health, education, social welfare, women’s affairs, early childhood, water and sanitation, mental health, violence prevention, innovative finance, climate, and many others. The convening united representatives across governments, civil society organizations, programme implementers, philanthropies, multilateral organizations, bilateral funders, private companies, universities, schools and day care centres, and hospitals around the common cause of supporting parents and caregivers.
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Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) surveillance plays an important role in the early detection of resistant strains of public health importance ...lass="attribute-to-highlight medbox">and prompt response to outbreaks in hospitals and the community. Surveillance findings are needed to inform medical practice, antibiotic stewardship, and policy and interventions to combat AMR. Appropriate use of antimicrobials, informed by surveillance, improves patients’ treatment outcomes and reduces the emergence and spread of AMR. This protocol describes the steps and procedures to establish/enhance AMR surveillance in Latin America and the Caribbean.
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The Global Action Plan on Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) calls for making AMR a core component of professional education and training. In 2018, the... World Health Organization (WHO) published Competency framework for health workers’ education and training on AMR to ensure that academic institutions and regulatory agencies provided pre-service and in-service training to equip health workers with the adequate competencies to address AMR. This was followed by Health workers’ training and education on AMR: curricula guide, which outlines the learning objectives and expected outcomes of pre-service training of health workers to improve curricula. These tools were designed to strengthen the capacity of health workers in various settings to address the growing challenge of AMR.
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Circulating vaccine-derived poliovirus type 2 in Angola
Ebola virus disease in Democratic Republic of the Congo
Dengue fever in Côte d’Ivoire
Humanitarian crisis in north-east ...Nigeria.
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Millennium Development Goal 8E aims for affordable access to essential medicines. Essential medicines, as defined by WHO, are those that “satisfy the health-care needs ...ghlight medbox">of the majority of the population” and that should therefore “be available at all times in adequate amounts”. However, there is a category of medicines that faces a unique challenge in terms of availability. These are the medicines governed by the international conventions on narcotic and psychotropic substances. “Controlled medicines” is the common definition for pharmaceuticals whose active principles are listed under the 1961 United Nations Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs as amended by the 1972 Protocol, such as morphine and methadone; the 1971 United Nations Convention on Psychotropic Substances, such as diazepam and buprenorphine; and the 1988 United Nations Convention against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances, such as ergometrine and ephedrine. The conventions list substances in “Schedules” according to their different levels of potential for abuse and harm, and the commensurate severity of control measures to be applied by countries.
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This booklet provides policymakers, planners, and other interested parties with insight into the current state of the Rwandan health sector. These ...statistics provide a basis for policies, strategies, and planned interventions to ensure they are responsive to the needs of the health sector and, crucially, are focused on addressing current priorities that aim to improve the health of the Rwandan population.
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The Ministry of Health (MoH) of Syria officially declared a cholera outbreak on 10 September 2022, with the majority ...light medbox">of cases reported from Aleppo, Deir-ez-Zor and Al-Hasakeh governorates. Since the situation report issued on 26 September 2022, the number of confirmed and suspected cases continues to rise. A total of 13 of 14 governorates are now affected, compared with 10 during the last reporting period.
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There is a substantial and ever-increasing unmet need for rehabilitation worldwide, which is particularly profound in low- and middle
-income coun...tries. The availability of accessible and affordable rehabilitation is necessary for many people with health conditions to remain as independent as possible, to participate in education, to be economically productive, and fulfil meaningful life roles.
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Purpose of this document: to present eight practical steps that Member States can take at the national and sub-...medbox">national level to improve WASH in health care facilities
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Organizing and Delivering High Quality Care for Chronic Noncommunicable Diseases in the Americas
This technical report has been developed within the framework of the WHO Global Initiative for
Childhood Cancer. Its goal is to improve the situation of<.../span> children and adolescents with cancer worldwide,
giving them the best chances of survival, living a full life and, above all, enjoying quality of life and dying
without suffering
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Meeting Report 27-29 October 2020
The overall goal of the meeting was to discuss recent changes in treatment regimens and diagnostics for drug-res...istant TB and to determine how these impact on the definition of XDR-TB, with a view to revising this definition. The pre-existing definition of XDR-TB was formulated in 2006 at a meeting of the Global Taskforce on XDR-TB, convened by WHO, and has been in use for clinical and surveillance purposes, since this time.
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The ASEAN Mental Health Systems Report
catalogues the situation of mental health in ASEAN
Member States. This report provides comprehensive
info...rmation on the progress made so far by AMS in
integrating mental health into national health systems,
increasing access to care as well as challenges faced.
It also offers recommendations on how to improve the mental health system in
respective ASEAN Member States.
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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 ...ighlight medbox">and vaccines could be developed 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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