5 April 2022, Addendum. This policy brief confirms WHO guidance and policy on injection safety in the context of the extraordinary increase in global injections resulting from COVID-19 immunization ...campaigns. It also calls attention to information on specialized syringes for COVID-19 vaccines and broad short-term and long-term solutions to address and alleviate supply shortages related to vaccine products with non-standard dose volumes.
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Adolescent girls and young women (AGYW) remain disproportionately affected by HIV in Eastern and Southern Africa (ESA), with 26 per cent of new infections attributed to this population. AGYW face many personal, social and structural barriers to access, uptake and use of traditional HIV prevention me...thods. Oral Pre-exposure Prophylaxis (PrEP) is proven to be highly effective as an additional prevention choice for reducing the risk of HIV acquisition, including for AGYW. Successful uptake and adherence to PrEP is critical in its effectiveness as an HIV prevention method, however, the current demand for PrEP by AGYW is low with suboptimal adherence.
Within the ESA region, there is currently great impetus to address these challenges and scale up PrEP for AGYW. A critical aspect of this is to leverage the learnings and evidence from implementation of how to improve the demand and quality of PrEP programming for this population. Improving the Quality of Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis Implementation for Adolescent Girls and Young Women in Eastern and Southern Africa examines the current efforts in the region to accelerate and scale up evidence-based PrEP delivery platforms. The implementation brief provides current knowledge and builds on WHO guidance to provide key considerations for implementation, including driving demand and improving quality, as well as focus on wider combination prevention and integration agendas.
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The Knowledge Guide provides guidance on how health workers can apply the Standards to their own practice. For each of the nine competencies and th...eir specific behaviours in the Standards, the Knowledge Guide examines in detail how a health worker's knowledge, skills and attitudes can reach the stated benchmark for providing people-centred health services to refugees and migrants. The Knowledge Guide also details the learning outcomes that reflect the behaviours that a health worker will demonstrate once they have achieved the Competency Standards.
The Knowledge Guide is designed for educators and health workers to assist in designing or integrating learning content to enable attainment of the identified knowledge, skills and attitudes.
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The road map sets global targets and milestones to prevent, control, eliminate or eradicate 20 diseases and disease groups as well as cross-cutting targets aligned with the Sustainable Development G...oals. Three foundational pillars will support global efforts to achieve the targets: accelerate programmatic action (pillar 1), intensify cross-cutting approaches (pillar 2) and change operating models and culture to facilitate country ownership (pillar 3).
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This companion document to Ending the neglect to attain the Sustainable Development Goals: a road map for neglected tropical diseases 2021-2030 ("the...n> road map") aims to support a range of stakeholders - including countries in which neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) are endemic, international organizations and non-State actors - to achieve the road map targets through a transdisciplinary, cross-cutting One Health approach. Specifically, it provides guidance on the One Health actions needed by major stakeholders and how to support a paradigm shift towards One Health in national NTD programmes. Examples of common One Health challenges and how they can be overcome as well as illustrative cases studies are provided throughout. The companion document was developed through a global consultative process involving stakeholder interviews, interactive workshops, and online public consultation.
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The Atlas of Palliative Care in the Eastern Mediterranean Region is the first systematic attempt to assess ...ox">the status of resources, activities, and needs of palliative care in the region. It provides a comparative picture of the current state of palliative care in simple and clear graphics, utilising texts, tables, figures and maps that reproduce information given by national palliative care leaders in the Eastern Mediterranean. This information is essential for the appropriate planning of the development of palliative care for this region.
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The Toolkit is a resource that may be used by businesses of all sizes in the different sectors. The guidelines provided in ...o-highlight medbox">the Toolkit are intentionally general so they can easily be adapted by employers to their specific business culture, working environment and human resource procedures.
The Toolkit will be particularly relevant to designated employers in terms of the Employment Equity Act 55 of 1998. Human resources personnel, DPO’s and all organisations pursuing greater employment opportunities
for persons with disabilities will find the Toolkit similarly useful.
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On the global scale, the impacts of the current food system on the environment are severe. ... class="attribute-to-highlight medbox">The agro-industrial revolution has made it possible to increase food production at a price.
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The biosphere underlies the whole sustainable development concept, as the layer on
which society and t...he economy rely. Nature and biodiversity fuel the natural cycles
and life-support systems of the planet, on which humanity ultimately depends.
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The mhGAP community toolkit: field test version is an integral part of WHO's Mental Health Gap Action Programme (mhGAP), and aims at scaling up services for people with mental health conditions to achieve universal health coverage.
...attribute-to-highlight medbox">The toolkit provides guidance for programme managers on how to identify local mental health needs and tailor community services to match these needs. It offers practical information and necessary tools for community providers to promote mental health, prevent mental health conditions and expand access to mental health services.
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Epilepsy is one of the most common neurological disorders globally. The WHO epilepsy technical brief aims to strengthen action for epilepsy and complements ...attribute-to-highlight medbox">the Intersectoral global action plan on epilepsy and other neurological disorders 2022–2031.
The technical brief presents the key information on epilepsy and recommends actions to policy makers and other stakeholders. Using the concept of levers for change introduced by the Operational Framework for Primary Health Care, it identifies actions on the policy and operational levels that stakeholders should take to strengthen services for people with epilepsy using a person-centered approach based on human rights and universal health coverage.
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After the earthquake in Türkiye-Syria in February 2023 an emergency response was provided to the affected population. Young persons with disabilities were one of ... medbox">the social groups most affected by the crisis. These were either young persons who acquired a disability due to the earthquake, or young persons with disabilities who were further isolated after the crisis due to compounded and structural barriers.
In response to this situation the Compact for Young People in Humanitarian Action reached out to the Youth2030 Disability Task Team with the aim of supporting humanitarian teams in the field. The current version of this checklist has been developed for a broader context not only for the Türkiye-Syria case, but also for other humanitarian crises. This checklist aims to provide guidance on how to ensure meaningful participation of young persons with disabilities in local humanitarian response. The expected users are humanitarian actors, especially those working in the field.
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Since the discovery of insulin nearly 100 years ago, advances in diabetes treatments and therapies have transformed the lives of people
with diabetes (PwD), notably reducing ...to-highlight medbox">the daily burden of its management.
Newer technologies, including those driven by artificial intelligence, have the potential to further improve the quality of life of PwD and help
identify and diagnose people at risk of developing Type 2 diabetes and diabetes-related complications early. However, medical and technological advances alone are not enough to fix the diabetes challenge. It is also critical to acknowledge the complexity and the seriousness of diabetes, its impact on the quality of life and well-being of over 32 million PwD in the EU and the financial burden it represents for health systems and society at large.
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Since the Alma Ata Declaration in 1978, community health volunteers (CHVs) have been at the forefront, providing health services, especially to underserved communities, in low-income countries. Howe...ver, consolidation of CHVs position within formal health systems has proved to be complex and continues to challenge countries, as they devise strategies to strengthen primary healthcare. Malawi’s community health strategy, launched in 2017, is a novel attempt to harmonise the multiple health
service structures at the community level and strengthen service delivery through a team-based approach. The core community health team (CHT) consists of health surveillance assistants (HSAs), clinicians, environmental health officers and CHVs. This paper reviews Malawi’s strategy, with particular focus on the interface between HSAs, volunteers in community-based programmes and
the community health team. Our analysis identified key challenges that may impede the strategy’s implementation:
(1) inadequate training, imbalance of skill sets within CHTs and unclear job descriptions for CHVs; (2) proposed community-level interventions require expansion of pre-existing roles for most CHT members; and (3) district authorities may face challenges meeting financial obligations and filling community-level positions. For effective implementation, attention and further deliberation is needed on the appropriate forms of CHV support, CHT composition with possibilities of co-opting trained CHVs
from existing volunteer programmes into CHTs, review of CHT competencies and workload, strengthening coordination and communication across all community actors, and financing mechanisms. Policy support through the development of an addendum to the strategy, outlining opportunities for task-shifting between CHT members, CHVs’ expected duties and interactions with paid CHT personnel is recommended.
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Mainstreaming Persons with Disabilities into Society
(Health Systems in Transition, Vol. 4, No. 3, 2014)
This study was carried out to better understand the local beliefs and practices likely to enhance or hinder efforts to respond to the Ebola Virus Disease outbreak in Liberia.
The guidance aspires
• To emphasize the 'need' to mainstream disaster risk reduction (DRR) in the health sector initiatives.
• To ide...ntify key approaches for mainstreaming DRR in the health sector in Myanmar, particularly in rural areas, based on the good practices, innovative approaches and lessons learned of Government, UN agencies, NGOs and others involved in the Cyclone Nargis recovery.
• Identify key ‘vulnerabilities and opportunities’ for creating a ‘safer health system’ in Myanmar.
No publication year indicated.
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