Evidence from a systematic review on antenatal zinc supplementation was evaluated as part of the World Health Organization (WHO) antenatal care (ANC) guideline development process in 2016, and the f
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ollowing recommendation on zinc supplementation was made: “Zinc supplementation for pregnant women is only recommended in the context of rigorous research.” The Guideline Development Group (GDG) made this recommendation because it felt that the evidence on the intervention was incomplete and that more research was necessary.
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The pandemic has emphasized the high risk of avoidable harm to patients, health workers, and the general public, and has identified a range of safe
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ty gaps across all core components of health systems at all levels.
The rapid review ‘Implications of the COVID-19 pandemic for patient safety’ explores impacts that the COVID-19 pandemic did have on patient safety in terms of risks and avoidable harm, specifically in terms of diagnostic, treatment and care management related issues as well as highlights the main patterns of these implications within the broader health system context.
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This checklist is for any organization or person supporting the routine use of evidence in
the process of policy-making. Evidence-informed policy-making (EIPM) is essential for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and universal
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health coverage (UHC). Its importance is emphasized in WHO’s Thirteenth General Programme of
Work 2019–2023 (GPW13). This checklist was developed by the WHO Secretariat of Evidence-Informed Policy Network (EVIPNet) to assist its Member countries in institutionalizing EIPM. Government agencies (i.e. the staff of the Ministry of Health),
knowledge intermediaries and researchers focused on strengthening EIPM will find in this checklist some key steps and tools to help their work. While the health sector is a key target group for EVIPNet, this tool can be applied by stakeholders from
different social sectors
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The Government recognizes the critical role of the built environment in addressing climate change and environmental degradation. To this end, it has identified and empowered the Kenya Building Resea
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rch Centre to champion and coordinate the government’s green building agenda in relation to climate change mitigation and adaptation as stipulated in the Centre’s Strategic Plan (2017/2018 – 2021/2022)
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Traditional food markets play important economic, cultural, and social role and are sources of livelihood for millions of people in urban and rural
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areas. The manual Five keys for safer traditional food markets: risk mitigation in traditional food markets in the Asia-Pacific Region aims to support and guide local authorities, market community, and consumers to transform these markets into safer and healthier places through practical risk mitigation measures and community engagement strategies. The manual provides guidance on the implementation of five keys to promote public health and safety, particularly, in the context of food safety, zoonoses diseases, and infectious respiratory diseases.
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The elimination scenario planning (ESP) manual provides malaria-endemic countries with a comprehensive framework to assess different scenarios for moving towards this goal, depending on programme coverage and funding availability. It also helps coun
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tries set realistic timelines and provides essential knowledge for strategic planning in the long term.
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In light of the decline in new Ebola cases, strategies are now needed to scale down the activities and bed capacities in Ebola care facilities. These facilities include Ebola treatment units, community care centres, Ebola treatment centres
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and isolation centres. The Governments of Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone; WHO; CDC; ICAN and UNICEF have jointly developed this rapid guidance and checklist to assist national governments and partners as they begin this process. This rapid guidance pertains to protecting the safety and repurposing of infrastructures and resources previously used for the Ebola outbreak to care for Ebola patients.
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Communities can play a critical role in suicide prevention. Facilitating community engagement in suicide prevention is an important task. The toolkit is a step-by-step guide for communities to engage in suicide prevention activities and have ownersh
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ip of the process and keep efforts sustained. It is hoped that the pilot version will be used, after necessary adaptation, in many countries and contexts, so that the final product can be strengthened and become more effective and user-friendly.
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Updated 2022. This guide addresses the care pathway from presentation of the patient to a health facility to patient discharge. It considers different levels of disease severity, from asymptomatic individuals to critically ill patients. Accounting f
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or variations in the benefits and harms of chest imaging in different situations, remarks are provided to describe the circumstances under which each recommendation would benefit patients. The guide also includes implementation considerations for different settings, provides suggestions for impact monitoring and evaluation and identifies knowledge gaps meriting further research.
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The internationally recognized criteria for diagnosis of neurocysticercosis include a requirement for neuroimaging techniques, such as computerized tomography (CT) and/or magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), ideally supported by serology. These facilit
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ies are not available in all settings, especially in rural areas of low-income countries, making it difficult to identify and treat patients. Additionally, there is controversy about the role, type and duration of anthelmintic, antiinflammatory and antiepileptic drug (AED) treatments for different forms of neurocysticercosis.
These guidelines were developed to assist health-care providers in appropriate, evidence-based management of parenchymal neurocysticercosis. The guidelines do not address other forms of neurocysticercosis and do not include management of extraparenchymal disease (including cysticerci in the cerebral ventricles or subarachnoid space). The aim of the guidance is to improve decision-making to ensure appropriate patient care and to avoid misdiagnoses and inappropriate treatment of patients with neurocysticercosis.
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This report examines the support to private healthcare provision in India by the World Bank’s private sector arm, the International Finance Corporation (IFC). Despite supporting private healthcare in the country since 1997, no healthcare results for lending
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and investments have been disclosed since the start of these operations over twenty-five years ago. The IFC has overwhelmingly invested in high-end urban hospitals which are out of reach for the majority of Indians. Several have consistently failed to provide free healthcare to poor patients despite this being a condition under which free or subsidized public land was allotted to these hospitals. Supporting private healthcare in a context where 37% of Indians experience catastrophic health expenditures in private hospitals appears to run counter to the World Bank Group’s focus on poverty reduction. These investments do not contribute to the building of stronger healthcare infrastructure or respond to unmet healthcare needs. Only 14% of IFC-financed hospitals are located in the 10 states ranked lowest in terms of the overall performance of the health system. Furthermore, we found many instances where regulators upheld complaints pertaining to violations of patients’ rights by these hospitals including overcharging, denial of healthcare, price rigging, financial conflict of interest and medical negligence.
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African countries, like many regions of the world, are affected by the legacy of atrocity crimes. Genocide, the transatlantic slave trade and slavery, colonialism and post-independence violence comm
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itted during dictatorships, not to mention civil war and violent extremism, have severely violated human rights and left devastating marks on societies across the continent. The way in which societies deal with violent pasts has profound implications for the present and the future, as well as their chances of building sustainable peace.
Strengthening education about atrocity crimes, including genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes, is an essential part of addressing violent pasts and preventing future atrocity crimes. Echoing a series of United Nations resolutions on the importance of educational measures for genocide prevention,1 in 2013, the Secretary-General’s annual report Responsibility to protect: State responsibility and prevention included the recommendation: “Education curriculums should include instruction on past violations and on the causes, dynamics and consequences of atrocity crimes” as an important means to promote societal resilience to atrocity crimes.
This recognition is in line with the Education 2030 Agenda and, more specifically, target 4.7 of Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 4 on Education. This target calls on countries to promote education that fosters sustainable development, human rights, gender equality, a culture of peace, global citizenship and an appreciation of cultural diversity.
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Since 24 February 2022, the war in Ukraine has caused widespread suffering to its people and serious damage
to the country’s infrastructure. Attacks on the country’s health system
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and its power network threaten people, compromise the provision of health care, and complicate the distribution of essential medicines and equipment.
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Rabies is fatal, vaccine-preventable disease responsible for an estimated 59,000 human deaths each year. Most cases are transmitted by dogs, and most deaths occur in underserved populations in Africa and
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Asia. Approximately 40% of deaths occur in children.
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• provide scientific information on the safety, efficacy, and quality control/ quality assurance of widely used medicinal plants, in order to facilitate their appropriate use in Member States;
• provide models to assist Member States in develop
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ing their own mono- graphs or formularies for these or other herbal medicines; and
• facilitate information exchange among Member States.
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This 2011 update of Guidelines for the programmatic management of drug-resistant tuberculosis is intended as a tool for use by public health professionals working in response
to the Sixty-second World Hea
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lth Assembly’s resolution on prevention and control of multidrug-resistant tuberculosis and extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis.
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Module 8
Site Planning
July 2017
Module 8: Site planning. This module is for people involved in organizing PrEP services at specific sites. It outlines the steps to be taken in planning a PrEP service and gives suggestions for personnel, infr
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astructure and commodities that could be considered when implementing PrEP.
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Social distancing is an action taken to minimise contact with other individuals; social distancing measures comprise one category of non-pharmaceutical countermeasures (NPCs)1 aimed at reducing disease transmission and thereby also reducing pressure
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on health services.
This document builds upon existing ECDC documents, including guidelines for the use of non-pharmaceutical measures to delay and mitigate the impact of 2019-nCoV, a rapid risk assessment: outbreak of novel coronavirus disease – 5th update, a technical report on the use of evidence in decision-making during public health emergencies, and a guidance document on community engagement for public health events caused by communicable disease threats in the EU/EEA.
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Recency assays use one or more biomarkers to identify whether HIV infection in a person is recent (usually within a year or less) or longstanding. Recency assays have been used to estimate incidence in representative cross-sectional surveys and in e
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pidemiological studies to better understand the patterns and distributions of new and longstanding HIV infections.
This technical guidance outlines best practices regarding the appropriate use of HIV recency assays for surveillance purposes and updates 2011 technical guidance from the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) on the use of HIV recency assays.
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For thousands of years, humans have been using wildlife for commercial and subsistence purposes. Wildlife trade takes place at local, national and international levels, with different forms of wildl
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ife, such as live animals, partly processed products and finished products. Wildlife is a vital source of safe and nutritious food, clothing, medicine, and other products, in addition to having religious and cultural value. Wildlife trade also contributes to livelihoods, income generation and overall economic development.
However, wildlife trade can have detrimental effects on species conservation, depleting natural resources, impoverishing biodiversity and degrading ecosystems (Morton et al., 2021). Wildlife trade, whether legal or illegal, regulated or unregulated, can pose threats to animal health and welfare. It also presents opportunities for zoonotic pathogens to spill over between wildlife and domestic animals, and for diseases to emerge with serious consequences for public or animal health and profound economic impacts (IPBES, 2020; Swift et al., 2007; Smith et al., 2009; Gortazar et al., 2014; Stephen, 2021; Stephen et al., 2022; FAO, 2020). The risk of pathogen spillover and disease emergence is amplified with increased interaction between humans, wildlife and domestic animals. The risk of pathogen spillover has also been exacerbated by climate change, intensified agriculture and livestock production, deforestation, and other land-use changes. Wildlife trade is also a risk to ecosystem biodiversity via the introduction of invasive species (Wikramanayake et al., 2021). Therefore, increased effort must be put into understanding the potential consequences of the wildlife trade, mapping and analysing the adjacent risks, and implementing strategies to manage those risks. Reducing wildlife-trade risks not only helps to limit disease but also minimises the negative effects of invasive species. Between 1960 and 2021, invasive alien species caused estimated cumulative damage of around 116 billion euros across 39 countries in the European Union alone, despite strict import regulations (Haubrock et al., 2021). The effect of invasive species is extremely apparent.
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