The impact of maternal mental health problems on infants in high income countries has been identified mostly in terms of psychosocial and emotional development, thanks to the groundbreaking early work of Spitz (2) and of Bowlby (3), who studied the emotional needs of infants and mother-child attachm...ent. Subsequently, a large body of literature, also from HICs, documented the effects of maternal mental health on the child's psychological development (4), intellectual competence(5), psychosocial functioning (6) and rate of psychiatric morbidity (7, 8).
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These guidelines provide recommendations for the non-pharmacological aspects of infection prevention and control for acute respiratory diseases (ARD) in health care. Administrative and infection controls, including early detection, isolation and reporting, and establishment of infection control infr...astructure, are key components for containment and mitigation of the impact of pathogens that may constitute a major public health threat. In these guidelines, the options of using natural ventilation and/or exhaust fan assisted ventilation in health-care facilities (HCF) are considered.
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Our goal at Voices for Georgia’s Children is to help decision-makers craft and implement policies that ensure Georgia’s children grow up to be healthy, educated and productive citizens. To that end, we have developed a comprehensive policy agenda focused on early childhood, child health and disc...onnected youth, which, if followed, can effectively prevent and offset some of the damaging experiences faced by our children. Many of our recommendations are aligned with those included in this policy brief.
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Regional Network for Equity in Health in east and southern Africa (EQUINET): Disussion Paper 110
This report compiles evidence from published, grey literature and key informants on the UNMHCP
since its introduction in Uganda’s health system, and findings were further validated during a oneda...y
national stakeholder meeting.
Three main factors motivated introduction of the UNMHCP. First, Uganda, along with other lowincome countries, was unable to implement holistically the primary healthcare (PHC) concepts as set out in the Alma Ata Declaration. Second, the macro-economic restructuring carried out in the 1990s, which was an international conditionality for low-income countries to access development financing, influenced the trend towards more stringent prioritisation of health interventions as a means of rationing and targeting use of resources. Third, the government sought to achieve equity with a service package that would be universally available for all people.
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Summary of research into the consequences of the Ebola outbreak for children and communities in Liberia and Sierra Leone
This study describes the range of impacts that Ebola has had on children and families in Liberia and Sierra Leone, looking beyond the immediate health effects
The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has shown that public financial management (PFM) should be an integral part of the response. Effectiveness in financing the health response depends not only on the level of funding but also on the way public funds are allocated and spent, this is determined by the PFM r...ules, and how money flows to health service providers. So far, early assessments have shown that PFM systems ranged from being a fundamental enabler to acting as a roadblock in the COVID-19 health response. While service delivery mechanisms have been extensively documented throughout the pandemic, the underlying PFM mechanisms of the response also merit attention. To highlight the importance of PFM in health emergency contexts, this rapid review analyses various country PFM experiences and identifies early lessons emerging from the financing of the health response to COVID-19. The assessment is done by stages of the budget cycle: budget allocation, budget execution, and budget oversight. Identifying lessons from the varying PFM modalities used to finance the response to COVID-19 is fundamental both for health policy-makers and for finance authorities to prepare for future health emergencies.
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Cervical cancer, along with maternal deaths, has been identified as a national priority in
South Africa as well as other Sub-Saharan African countries. Cervical cancer is the
second most common cancer among women in South Africa, after breast cancer. Due
to limited access to prevention, early dia...gnosis and treatment, cervical cancer is often
fatal.
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Climate change is one of the most urgent challenges for people and ecosystems worldwide. The recently published sixth Assessment Report (AR6) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) stresses the occurrence of widespread adverse impacts of climate change. Increased frequency and inten...sity of extreme weather events, as well as slow-onset processes cause enormous losses and damages to human and natural systems. Marginalized groups and people in vulnerable situations are often disproportionally affected. While the impacts of climate change already become more tangible and threatening, action for addressing them remains insufficient. Adaptation to climate change is, thus, becoming a necessity for governments, companies, and private citizens.
To provide practical and scientifically sound guidance on how to conduct vulnerability assessments, GIZ published its Vulnerability Sourcebook in 2014. The Vulnerability Sourcebook was used in over twenty different GIZ partner countries and provides a step-by-step guidance for designing and implementing a vulnerability assessment. It is also one of the methodological foundations for the ISO 14091:2021 standard on vulnerability, impacts and risk assessment for climate change adaptation.
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Population movements have turned Chagas disease (CD) into a global public health problem. Despite the successful implementation of subregional initiatives to control vectorial and transfusional Trypanosoma cruzi transmission in Latin American settings where the disease is endemic, congenital CD (cCD...) remains a significant challenge. In countries where the disease is not endemic, vertical transmission plays a key role in CD expansion and is the main focus of its control. Although several health organizations provide general protocols for cCD control, its management in each geopolitical region depends on local authorities, which has resulted in a multitude of approaches. The aims of this review are to (i) describe the current global situation in CD management, with emphasis on congenital infection, and (ii) summarize the spectrum of available strategies, both official and unofficial, for cCD prevention and control in countries of endemicity and nonendemicity. From an economic point of view, the early detection and treatment of cCD are cost-effective. However, in countries where the disease is not endemic, national health policies for cCD control are nonexistent, and official regional protocols are scarce and restricted to Europe. Countries of endemicity have more protocols in place, but the implementation of diagnostic methods is hampered by economic constraints. Moreover, most protocols in both countries where the disease is endemic and those where it is not endemic have yet to incorporate recently developed technologies. The wide methodological diversity in cCD diagnostic algorithms reflects the lack of a consensus. This review may represent a first step toward the development of a common strategy, which will require the collaboration of health organizations, governments, and experts in the field.
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The main objective of the malaria prevention and control programme in Somalia is to prevent mortality and reduce morbidity due to malaria. The groups most vulnerable to the disease, children aged under 5 years and pregnant women, are especially targeted. Effective case management - early diagnosis a...nd treatment - is a critical component of malaria prevention and control. To achieve the main objective of reducing malaria morbidity and prevention of malaria mortality, the availability of safe, effective, affordable and accessible anti-malarial drugs is a prerequisite.
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Parasites & Vectors volume 11, Article number: 264 (2018)
Dengue creates a staggering epidemiological and economic burden for endemic countries. Without a specific therapy and with a commercial vaccine that presents some problems relative to its full effectiveness, initiatives to improve vector... control strategies, early disease diagnostics and the development of vaccines and antiviral drugs are priorities. In this study, we present the probable origins of dengue in America and the trajectories of its spread. Overall, dengue diagnostics are costly, making the monitoring of dengue epidemiology more difficult and affecting physicians’ therapeutic decisions regarding dengue patients, especially in developing countries. This review also highlights some recent and important findings regarding dengue in Brazil and the Americas. We also summarize the existing DENV polymerase chain reaction (PCR) diagnostic tests to provide an improved reference since these tests are useful and accurate at discriminating DENV from other flaviviruses that co-circulate in the Americas. Additionally, these DENV PCR assays ensure virus serotyping, enabling epidemiologic monitoring.
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The overall goal of surveillance, case investigation and contact tracing in this context is to stop human-to-human transmission to control the outbreak. The key objectives of surveillance and case investigation are to rapidly identify cases and clusters in order to provide optimal clinical care; to ...isolate cases to prevent further transmission; to identify, manage and follow up contacts to recognize early signs of infection; to protect frontline health workers; to identify risk groups; and to tailor effective control and prevention measures.
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COVID-19 has heavily emphasized how contact tracing is crucial for managing outbreaks, and as part of the strategy for adjusting, and eventually lifting, lockdowns and other stringent public health and social measures. As the pandemic develops further, it will be a core measure to manage further wav...es of infection. In early June 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) convened an online global consultation on contact tracing in the context of COVID-19, looking at the lessons of the pandemic to date; known and emerging best practices; and the measures necessary for urgent implementation, scale-up, maintenance and enhancement of contact tracing activities.
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Noma (cancrum oris) is a severe gangrenous disease of the mouth and face. It mostly affects children between the ages of 2 and 6 years living in extreme poverty. In addition to the known factors such as malnutrition, lack of vaccination in children and poor oral hygiene, several social and environme...ntal factors such as maternal malnutrition and close spacing of pregnancies that result in offspring with increasingly weakened immune systems are potentially related to the onset of the disease.
The aim of this guide is to assist the ministries of health (MoHs) to identify a general goal to be attained by the end of five years, with a view to sustainably reducing the incidence of noma as a public health problem through programmes that are fully integrated with national health planning, strengthening of primary health care (PHC) and attainment of UHC.
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