Accessed: 07.03.2020
A Review of Community Health Worker (CHW) knowledge, attitudes and practices relating to the sexual health of MSM, including existing training materials and manuals in Europ...e and neighbouring countries (D5.1)
Contract 2015 71 01 A behavioural survey for HIV/AIDS and associated infections and a survey and tailored training for community based health workers to facilitate access and improve the quality of prevention, diagnosis of HIV/AIDS, STI and viral hepatitis and health care services for men who have sex with men (MSM).
Pubic Health
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Productive and Inclusive Cities for an Emerging Democratic Republic of Congo
People in prisons and other places of detention live in a closed environment and in close proximity with one another – conditions that facilitate transmission of diseases. They also have a greater... underlying burden of disease and worse health conditions than the general population, and frequently face greater exposure to risks such as smoking, poor hygiene and weak immune defence due to stress, poor nutrition or existing diseases. All these factors make people living in prison more susceptible to infections.
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- Interim guide: May 2020 update.
On the 25th of March, the GPEI circulated the first update of the interim guide to help ensure continuity of the... programme’s operations in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as its support to the pandemic response while also ensuring the safety of its personnel and the communities it works with.
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This report provides an overview of the key information gaps and limitations in interpreting existing COVID-19 data
The COVID-19 pandemic has affected everyone, including key populations at higher risk of HIV. And the gains made against other infectious diseases, including HIV, are at risk of being reversed as a ...result of disruptions caused by COVID-19. This is the background to a new report published by FHI 360, in collaboration with UNAIDS, which gives advice on how to minimize the impacts of COVID-19 on key populations.
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COVID-19 disproportionately affects the poor and vulnerable. Community health workers are poised to play a pivotal role in fighting the pandemic, especially in countries with less resilient health systems. Drawing from practitioner expertise across four WHO regions, this article outlines the targete...d actions needed at different stages of the pandemic to achieve the following goals: (1) PROTECT healthcare workers, (2) INTERRUPT the virus, (3) MAINTAIN existing healthcare services while surging their capacity, and (4) SHIELD the most vulnerable from socioeconomic shocks. While decisive action must be taken now to blunt the impact of the pandemic in countries likely to be hit the hardest, many of the investments in the supply chain, compensation, dedicated supervision, continuous training and performance management necessary for rapid community response in a pandemic are the same as those required to achieve universal healthcare and prevent the next epidemic.
BMJ Global Health2020;5:e002550. doi:10.1136/bmjgh-2020-002550
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While many of the countries hit by the COVID-19 in the first few months of the year are now beginning to relax lockdown measures as infection and death rates fall, in the regions most affected by HI...V, TB and malaria, such as Africa, South Asia and Latin America, the pandemic continues to accelerate. In lower resource settings, lockdowns are less effective and hard to sustain, and clinical care facilities are extremely limited. In such environments, the response to COVID-19 must focus on containing the pandemic’s spread as far as possible through testing, contact tracing and isolation, protecting the health workforce through training and the provision of personal protective equipment (PPE) and minimizing the knock-on impact on other diseases through shoring up fragile health systems, and adapting existing disease programs.
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Our spiritual health profoundly impacts our physical health, well-being, and quality of life. Just as medical professionals care for our bodies and minds, spiritual care practitioners care for our spirits. The increasing need for spiritual care make...s these practitioners even more crucial. However, many of us have limited access to quality, professional spiritual care. At times of struggle, this lack of spiritual care can have a negative impact on our health and well-being.Investigators and researchers are creating a growing body of evidence for the innumerable benefits of professional spiritual care, yet many people still do not have a lot of accurate information about these practitioners. To create this publication, the six largest healthcare chaplaincy organizations in North America collaborated to share the facts about spiritual care and practitioners’ roles, training, and standards.By providing evidence and dispelling myths, the thousands of spiritual care practitioners represented by these organizations hope to increase access to spiritual care for the benefit of all.
accessed July 2020
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In the time of coronavirus disease (COVID-19), sex and drug use will continue, regardless of physical distancing orders and policies. People who previously met in community gathering venues such as ...bars and clubs may now meet in different sites, ones that are “hidden” or less accessible. This, in turn, may hinder efforts to reach them with prevention interventions, such as condoms, lubricants, and needle–syringe programmes. With the widespread loss of livelihood and fewer employment opportunities, transactional sex, sex work and sexual exploitation may increase. Anxiety about the pandemic and personal vulnerability also may lead to some disruption in community cohesion, and to changes in the social and sexual norms that influence behaviour.
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Masangane Case Study
The Vesper Society commissioned ARHAP to do research on the integrated Masangane HIV/AIDS programme affiliated with the Moravian Church in Eastern Cape, South Africa. Completed in 2006, this study aimed to understand the role of...> the religious health assets of the Masangane ART programme for public health, as a model for a replicable response to HIV/AIDS. A crucial aspect of this research involved teasing out what value is added to this programme by its faith-based nature. Field work for this case study consisted of more than 20 key informant interviews of various stakeholders: Masangane staff and management; church leaders; health seekers; donors and health providers. Health seekers also answered 77 questionnaires and were involved in two focus groups.
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The two-year impact report for the Access to COVID-19 Tools (ACT) Accelerator details impact, case studies and timelines of key milestones for the Diagnostics, Therapeutics and Vaccines pillars, as well as the Health Systems and Response Connector.
As daily lives and communities are upended by COVID-19, concern is mounting that children’s exposure to violence may increase. Children with a history of abuse may find themselves even more vulnerable – both at home and online – and may experi...ence more frequent and severe acts of violence. Others may be victimized for the first time.
Understanding the current status of violence prevention and response services is therefore essential to assessing risks to children
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The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) showed
that global commitment and collective action
could significantly reduce the disease burdens of
three deadly communicable diseases: HIV/AIDS,
tuberculosis (TB) and malaria. The MDGs helped
focus eff...orts on these three deadly diseases
and leveraged disease-specific programmes and
financing, thus achieving significant progress.
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An estimated 99% of children worldwide – or more than 2.3 billion children – live in one of the 186 countries that have implemented some form of...> restrictions due to COVID-191. Although children are not at a high risk of direct harm from the virus, they are disproportionately affected by its hidden impacts.
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Integrated Management of Acute Malnutrition National Guidelines
The failure to protect the people most vulnerable to climate change is especially alarming given the steady increase in the number of climate and weather-related disasters. According to the World Disasters Report, the average number ...ribute-to-highlight medbox">of climate and weather-related disasters per decade has increased nearly 35 per cent since the 1990s.
Over the past decade, 83 per cent of all disasters were caused by extreme weather and climate-related events such as floods, storms, and heatwaves. Together, these disasters killed more than 410,000 people and affected a staggering 1.7 billion people.
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This paper reviews the effects of vertical responses to COVID-19 on health systems, services, and people’s access to and use of them in LMICs, where historic and ongoing under-investments heighten... vulnerability to a multiplicity of health threats. We use the term ‘vertical response’ to describe decisions, measures and actions taken solely with the purpose of preventing and containing COVID-19, often without adequate consideration of how this affects the wider health system and pre-existing resource constraints.
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