The Government of Kenya, through the Ministry of Health, has the
constitutional obligation to provide the highest level of health care for its
citizens. The Ministry of Health’s review of the 2015 Policy document
on infection prevention and control (IPC) is in line with that goal.
In this edition, the Antimicrobial Resistance chapter discusses the growing, dangerous trend of antimicrobial resistance and the potential catastrophic consequences on global health.
Chapter 1 of Frontier 2017: Emerging Issues of Environmental Concern
This guidance addresses rationale, risk-based scenarios, practical considerations prior to adoption of the self-testing products, quality assurance, safety and ethical considerations, and data management considerations for COVID-19 self-testing. The Africa CDC recommends the use of rapid antigen sel...f-testing within two key scenarios. The first includes testing for case identification within scenarios with a high risk of infection, including symptomatic cases and contacts of a confirmed case. The second scenario involves general screening within scenarios of low or unknown risk exposure allowing for self-care such as before gatherings with at-risk individuals and prior to participation in events involving members of different households. Within these scenarios, a positive test result indicates likelihood of current infection, while a negative test result indicates a lower risk of active infection, though it does not rule out infection altogether. All positive cases should be managed following the national COVID-19 management protocol of Member States.ssur
more
The Ideal Clinic Realisation and Maintenance (ICRM) programme was initiated by the National Department of Health in July 2013 in order to systematically improve primary health care (PHC) facilities and the quality of care they provide. The Ideal Clinic framework/dashboard sets out the standards for ...PHC facilities to provide good-quality health services. An Ideal Clinic is defined as a clinic with good infrastructure, adequate staff, adequate medicines and supplies, good administrative processes, and sufficient adequate bulk supplies. Applicable clinical policies, protocols and guidelines are adhered to, and it harnesses partner and stakeholder support.
more
The Adult Standard Treatment Guidelines and Essential Medicines List for Hospital Level provide a platform for transparency to enable equitable access to safe, effective, and affordable treatment options at hospital level taking into consideration the changing clinical needs of our population and th...e pragmatic implications of the introducing a new health technology.
more
Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is a multifaceted, international public health problem, which poses a direct threat to the safety of the population of South Africa. A national response is required to complement the development of a global plan, as articulated in the WHO’s draft resolution EB134/37 ...“Combating antimicrobial resistance including antibiotic resistance”, adopted by theWorld Health Assembly in May 2014. The overuse of antimicrobials is driving resistance. A return to appropriate, targeted antimicrobial use in humans, animals and the environment is critical if we are to conserve the antimicrobial armamentarium. Various interventions have been put in place to address antimicrobial resistance in South Africa. However, these are insufficient to effectively tackle the threat faced by the country. The strengths of the current system are outweighed by its weaknesses.
more
This paper explores access to water, sanitation, and health in pastoral communities in northern Tanzania. It argues that the concept of gender, used on its own, is not enough to understand the complexities of sanitation, hygiene, water, and health. It explores pastoralists’ views and perspectives ...on what is ‘clean’, ‘safe’, and ‘healthy’, and their need to access water and create sanitary arrangements that work for them, given the absence of state provision of modern water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) infrastructure. Although Tanzania is committed to enhancing its citizens’ access to WASH services, pastoral sanitation and hygiene tend to be overlooked and little attention is paid to complex ways in which access to ‘clean’ water and ‘adequate sanitation’ is structured in these communities. This paper offers an intersectional analysis of water and sanitation needs, showing how structural discrimination in the form of a lack of appropriate infrastructure, a range of sociocultural norms and values, and individual stratifiers interact to influence the sanitation and health needs of pastoralist men, women, boys, and girls.
more
Objective: To review the effectiveness of antibiotic stewardship interventions in hospitals in low- and middle-income countries.
The authors conduct an integrated survey of Antimicrobial Resistant Organisms (AMR) in drinking water, wastewater and surface water in three settings in Bangladesh: rural households, rural poultry farms, and urban food markets. Results show that untreated water discharged from rural households, poul...try farms and urban markets are major contributors to surface water pollution and antibiotic resistant bacteria genes, calling for increased surveillance and monitoring.
more
Constraints, Technologies, Policies and Processes
For health care providers.
Sub-Saharan Africa has the highest maternal mortality in the world. According to estimates by the United Nations Maternal Mortality Estimation Inter-Agency Group (UN MMEIG)1 in September 2017, while the African Region had recorded a significant decline in maternal mortali...ty rate (MMR) of 37.8% between 2000 and 2017, 66% of the 295 000 maternal deaths reported globally occurred in sub-Saharan Africa. The African Region is also noted to have an extremely high MMR, estimated at 542 per 100000 livebirths, with an average annual rate of reduction of 2.9%.
more
These guidelines provide updated evidence-based recommendations on the priority HCV-related topics from the 2018 WHO Guidelines for the care and treatment of persons diagnosed with chronic hepatitis C infection and the 2017 WHO Guidelines on hepatitis B and C testing. These priority areas are:
... direct-acting antiviral (DAA) treatment of adolescents and children ages ≥3 years of age
simplified HCV service delivery (decentralization, integration and task sharing)
HCV diagnostics – use of point-of-care (POC) HCV ribonucleic acid (RNA) assays and reflex HCV RNA testing.
These guidelines also update existing chapters without new recommendations, such as the inclusion of new manufacturers’ protocols on the use of dried blood spot (DBS) for HCV RNA testing and new data to inform the limit of detection for HCV RNA assays as a test of cure, in addition to their use for diagnosis.
more
Since the notification of the first two confirmed cases of Vibrio cholerae O1 in the greater Port-au-Prince area on 2 October 2022, to 22 October 2022, the Haitian Ministry of Health (Ministère de la Santé Publique et de la Population, MSPP per its French acronym), reported a total of 2,243 suspec...ted cases, including 219 confirmed cases, 1,415 hospitalized suspected cases, and 55 registered deaths.
On 20 October 2022, the Dominican Republic Ministry of Public Health confirmed the first imported case of cholera in the country.
more
Government of Nepal has an obligation to ensure availability of affordable and high quality basic health care services to its population
January 2020 to December 2021
Issue Brief 28: Cargiver Toolbox Part 2
A collection of important documents from the category "Standard precautions", including hand hygiene, waste management, infection and prevention control (IPC) measures.