This South-East Asia Regional Strategy for Primary Health Care: 2022-2030 aims to accelerate progress in all countries of the Region towards universal health coverage (UHC),
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health security and the health-related Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). It is intended to provide Member States with guidance on facilitating PHC-orientation through the identification of seven values and 12 strategic actions that collectively embody the philosophy and practice of PHC, enunciated in the 1978 Declaration of Alma-Ata and reaffirmed in the 2018 Declaration of Astana.
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Lancet Infect Dis 2022 Published Online April 8, 2022 https://doi.org/10.1016/S1473-3099(22)00225-
This document describes the key areas that national governments should consider for the introduction and scale-up of point-of-care (POC) diagnostics within national programmes, as new innovative POC technologies are being introduced into the market. The next steps taken to include these new innovati
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ons within the broader context of national diagnostic networks of conventional laboratories could influence the achievement of the 2030 Fast Track targets for ending the AIDS epidemic.
POC diagnostics, when strategically introduced and integrated into national diagnostic networks, may help catalyse changes that improve the way diagnostics and clinical services are delivered. This document distils this understanding based on programmatic and market experiences of introducing POC diagnostics through catalytic investments in POC HIV technologies across numerous countries in sub-Saharan Africa.
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Physical distancing measures are important to reduce COVID-19 transmission. However, when stringently applied, they can result in negative health and socio-economic impacts. This report draws on a rapid review of available literature, case studies f
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rom across Africa and expert knowledge to make recommendations on adapting classic physical distancing measures to the contextual realities in Africa and on mitigating potential negative impacts.
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March 2021. “A Decade of Destruction: Attacks on health care in Syria,” highlights with chilling detail how this 10-year war strategy has turned hospitals from safe havens into no-go zones where Syrian civilians now fear for their lives.
The paper sets out the specific communication challenge posed by Ebola and why it was so difficult to get to grips with this in the early months of the outbreak. It thendocuments when the health communication response became more useful and explores
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what that tells us about effective media and communication. Finally, it offers recommendations to ensure that media and communication are used to their full potential during other disease outbreaks and humanitarian crisis
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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 being introduced into the mental
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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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Every day, health-care providers are being attacked, patients discriminated against, ambulances held up at checkpoints, hospitals bombed, medical supplies looted and entire communities cut off from critical services around the world.
Between Ja
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nuary 2012 and December 2014, the ICRC documented nearly 2,400 violent incidents against health care in 11 countries experiencing armed conflict or other violence. In over 90% of cases, local health-care providers were affected, seriously threatening the effectiveness and sustainability of national health-care systems. These numbers might well just be the tip of the iceberg
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The purpose of the handbook is to provide those involved in nutrition coordination with relevant tools, guidance, information and resources to support their roles in facilitating predictable, coordinated and effective preparation for, and responses to, nutrition needs in humanitarian emergencies. Ra
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ther than being prescriptive, the handbook aims to raises key issues encountered to date.
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21 January 2022
The overall threat posed by Omicron largely depends on four key questions: (i) how transmissible the variant is; (ii) how well vaccines and prior infection protect against infection, transmission, clinical disease and death; (iii) how virulent the variant is compared to other varian
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ts; and (iv) how populations understand these dynamics, perceive risk and follow control measures, including public health and social measures (PHSM).
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The World Health Organization is issuing a "roadmap" to guide and coordinate the international response to the outbreak of Ebola virus disease in West Africa.
The aim is to stop ongoing Ebola transmission worldwide within 6–9 months, while rapid
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ly managing the consequences of any further international spread. It also recognizes the need to address, in parallel, the outbreak’s broader socioeconomic impact.
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Recent efforts to fight malaria in the Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS) have yielded impressive results. According to the latest WHO estimates, the six GMS countries cut their malaria case incidence by an estimated 54% between 2012 and 2015. Malaria death rates fell by 84% over the same period.
I
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n May 2015, GMS Ministers of Health adopted the WHO Strategy for malaria elimination in the Greater Mekong Subregion 2015-2030. Urging immediate action, the plan aims to eliminate P. falciparum malaria from the subregion by 2025 and all species of human malaria by 2030.
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The pre-clinical pipeline shows more innovation and diversity, with 252 agents being developed to treat WHO priority pathogens.
However, these products are in the very early stages of development and still need to be proven effective and safe. The optimistic scenario, the report indicates, is for
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the first two to five products to become available in about 10 years.
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Of the 50 antibiotics in the pipeline, 32 target WHO priority pathogens but the majority have only limited benefits when compared to existing antibiotics. Two of these are active against the multi-drug resistant Gram-negative bacteria, which are spreading rapidly and require urgent solutions.
Gr
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am-negative bacteria, such as Klebsiella pneumoniae and Escherichia coli, can cause severe and often deadly infections that pose a particular threat for people with weak or not yet fully developed immune systems, including newborns, ageing populations, people undergoing surgery and cancer treatment.
The report highlights a worrying gap in activity against the highly resistant NDM-1 (New Delhi metallo-beta-lactamase 1), with only three antibiotics in the pipeline. NDM-1 makes bacteria resistant to a broad range of antibiotics, including those from the carbapenem family, which today are the last line of defence against antibiotic-resistant bacterial infections.
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WHO published the first COVID-19 Strategic Response and Preparedness Plan (SPRP) on 3 February, 2020. This report highlights the main points of progress that were made up to 30 June 2020 under the three objectives outlined in the SPRP: scaling up international coordination and support; scaling up co
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untry preparedness and response by pillar; and accelerating research and innovation. The report also discusses some of the key challenges faced so far, and provides an update on the resource requirements for the next phase of WHO’s response as part of an unprecedented whole-of-UN approach to the pandemic.
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National emergency medical teams are the best option for providing immediate and appropriate surge response for emergencies directly affecting populations, while international teams may help relieve overwhelmed health systems. The efficiency and eff
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ectiveness of countries and local authorities in mobilizing existing resources is only as good as the quality of care they are able to provide. This publication serves as a practical guide for teams and aims to compliment emergency response systems, fostering seamless collaboration with all emergency response actors and networks
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