Operational Guidelines for Programme Managers & Service Providers
These standards for the quality of paediatric care in health facilities form part of normative
guidance for improving the quality of maternal, newborn, child and adolescent health care.
In view of the importance of the continuum of both the life-course and service delivery (1),
these standards bu...ild on the Standards for improving the quality of maternal and newborn
care in health facilities (2), during labour, childbirth and the early postnatal period.
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Provision of integrated RH/FP/STI/HIV services
In Togo, the limited access of populations, especially women, young girls and children to Reproductive Health (RH), Family Planning, treatment of sexually transmissible infections (STI) and struggle against HIV quality services is responsible for t...he continuously low indicators in these areas. To remedy the problem, UNFPA Togo, in partnership with the Department of Family Health, the Health districts and the NGOs 3ASC and ATBEF, support the initiative of the Mobile Clinic to bring RH/FP/STI/HIV quality services closer to the women, the young girls and children living in rural areas in its intervention areas, with the aim of reaching MDG 4 and 5.
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In where under-five mortality is high and vitamin A deficiency is a public health problem, two high-dose supplements of vitamin A per year, spaced four to six months apart, can strengthen children’s immune systems and improve their chances of survival.
During much of early childhood – from... 6 months to 5years of age – two high doses of vitamin A every year can prevent blindness and hearing loss, boost children’s immunity against diseases like measles and diarrhoea and provide critical protection against death. Like all forms of malnutrition, vitamin A deficiency is a marker of inequality. In countries where diets are lacking in vitamin A and infections and deaths are prevalent, supplementation programmes give vulnerable children a better chance to survive, develop and thrive.
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India contributes to 16% of the global maternal deaths and around 27% of global newborn deaths. Reducing the burden of maternal and newborn mortality and morbidity in urban poor settings today requires an expansion of effective Maternal and Newborn Health (MNH) care services and lowering the barrier...s to the use of such services, especially availability and accessibility.
For designing sensitive, responsive and relevant urban health policy and action, it is important for planners and programme managers to understand the context with regard to current systems and mechanisms, potential organisations and best practices.
In order to adres this need, Save the Children’s Saving Newborn Lives programme commissioned a study that reviewed the literature and looked at available secondary data on MNH in urban poor settings.
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In 2014, the Ministry of Health (MOH) in Malawi conducted a nationwide assessment of emergency obstetric and newborn care (EmONC) services. This cross-sectional facility-based survey used 10 data collection modules. Data collection began on 23rd September 2014 and concluded on 17th October 2014, in ...all 28 districts. Facilities in both the public and private sector (for-profit and not-for-profit) were included. Since the focus of the assessment was obstetric and newborn care, health facilities that did not offer maternal and newborn health (MNH) services were not selected. In all districts, a census of all hospitals and a 60 percent random sample of health centres that ought to have performed deliveries in the previous year yielded a total of 365 facilities: 87 hospitals and 278 health centres. All these facilities were visited during the assessment. During analysis, weighting procedures were applied to extrapolate results to the district and national level, representing all 87 hospitals and 464 health centres. Such weighting was necessary as a stratified random sample of health centres was taken and weighting applied to all indicators and presentations that have health facility as a unit of measurement. Case reviews and provider’s interviews, on the other hand, are not weighted as their sampling strategy is based on convenience.
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Nepal has performed exceptionally in improving reproductive, maternal and child health outcomes over the past two decades. In this article, we discuss these achievements and outline a vision for the future of maternal, newborn and child survival in Nepal after the era of the Millennium Development G...oals. On the pathway towards quality universal health care services for all, we propose strengthening of health information systems, gradual health system reforms, improvement of existing facility based services, development of integrated service delivery models, improved technical and managerial capacity at district and facility levels. Elimination of all preventable causes of maternal, newborn and child deaths in Nepal should be our collective aspirational goal.
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Nepal has made substantial progress in reducing under-five mortality and is on track to achieve Millennium Development Goal 4, but advances in neonatal health are less encouraging. The objectives of this study were to assess relative and absolute inequalities in neonatal mortality over time, and to ...review experience with major programs to promote neonatal health.
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Vitamin A deficiency is a risk factor for blindness and for mortality from measles and diarrhoea in children aged 6–59 months. We aimed to estimate trends in the prevalence of vitamin A defi ciency between 1991 and 2013 and its mortality burden in low-income and middle-income countries.
Findings on maternal and child health in Nepal, Mozambique and
Rwanda, and neglected tropical diseases in Cambodia and Sierra Leone | This report synthesises findings from five country case studies from the health dimension of this project, which focus on maternal and child health (MCH) (Mozambique...,Nepal, Rwanda) and neglected tropical diseases (NTDs)(Cambodia, Sierra Leone). MCH was selected given its centrality in two of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and its ability to act as a proxy for strengthened health systems. NTDs, while until recently relatively neglected in global policy debates, are now attracting more interest, not least because they are viewed as diseases of the poor whose treatment could positively impact on most of the other MDGs.
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Maternal Child Nutrition. 2017;e12478
This paper analyzes individual level and household level determinants of anemia among children and women in Nepal and Pakistan. Applying multivariate modified Poisson models to recent national survey data, we find that the prevalence of anemia was significa...ntly higher among women from the poorest households in Pakistan (adjusted prevalence ratio [95% CI]: 1.10 [1.04–1.17]), women lacking sanitation facilities in Nepal (1.22 [1.12–1.33]), and among undernourished women (BMI < 18.5 kg/m2) in both countries (Nepal: 1.10 [1.00–1.21] and Pakistan: 1.07 [1.02–1.13]). Similarly, children in both countries were more likely to be anemic if stunted (Nepal: 1.19 [1.09–1.30] and Pakistan: 1.10 [1.07–1.14]) and having an anemic mother (Nepal: 1.31 [1.20–1.42] and Pakistan: 1.21 [1.17–1.26]).
https://doi.org/10.1111/mcn.12478
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PLoS ONE 13(8): e0202499. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0202499
This was a school-based cross-sectional study conducted in 2015 among 305 school children aged 7–16 years from two primary schools located in Ilemela and Magu Districts, north-western Tanzania. Single stool and urine samples w...ere collected from each participant and examined for the presence of Schistosoma mansoni eggs, parasite antigen, and parasite DNA using KK thick smears, POC-CCA tests, and real-time PCR, respectively.
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Human Resources for Health201816:49; https://doi.org/10.1186/s12960-018-0315-7
Post-traumatic symptoms in Ghanaian children. Thesis for Master of Philosophy in Peace and Conflict Studies (PECOS). This study investigated whether Ghanaian children exposed to low intensity warfare experience symptoms of PTSD as described in the DSM-IV. It also aimed to find out if there are cultu...rally-specific ways of displaying the symptoms and in dealing with the trauma.
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