This document presents an integrated strategy for mental health system development that will lead to enhanced service delivery, improved outcomes, and improved human rights for people with mental d
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isorders.
By using the practical guidance provided in this document, countries can ensure that their mental health systems are not haphazard, but rather, the products of careful consideration and planning.
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Lymphatic filariasis (LF) infection if untreated results in fluid accumulation in the limbs or breasts (lymphedema) or genitalia (hydrocele) that is painful and causes great discomfort. Morbidity management
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and disability prevention (MMDP) strategies such as surgery for hydrocele, treatment of acute attacks and management of lymphedema are necessary for the management of the advanced stages of LF. However, very few countries including Zambia, have adequate information on the health beliefs and health seeking behavior of communities living in endemic areas towards MMDP services for LF. This study sought to explore community and health provider perspectives towards MMDP services for LF in a highly endemic region, Luangwa District, Zambia, between February and April 2019.
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Purpose of this document: to present eight practical steps that Member States can take at the national and sub-national level to improve WASH in health
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care facilities
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At the threshold of Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) era, this document captures the remarkable achievements by Member States towards achieving MDGs 4 and 5. It acknowledges new opportunities in
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the post-2015 phase shaped by the SDGs and the Global Strategy for women’s, children’s and adolescents’ health and presents an advanced state of preparedness in the Region. This also highlights the region’s renewed commitment for a more inclusive and more dynamic flagship action for ending preventable maternal, newborn and child mortality as well as to improve women’s, children’s and adolescents’ health and wellbeing in the South-East Asia Region.
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Countries are making progress toward the global goal of 95% of people living with HIV knowing their status by 2025. However, considerable gaps remain in achieving these goals globally. Men in high H
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IV burden settings and men from key populations in all settings are consistently less likely to know their HIV status than women. Globally, 78% of men ages 15 years and older who are living with HIV are aware of their HIV status, compared with 86% of women with HIV of these ages.
Offering HIV testing services, including HIV self-testing, at formal and informal workplaces has emerged as an effective, acceptable and feasible approach for reaching men. A 2018 World Health Organization (WHO) and International Labour Organization (ILO) policy brief provides key guiding principles for HIVST implementation at workplaces. Building on the 2018 policy brief, this brief captures early experience with HIVST implementation at workplaces and discusses emerging approaches of sustainable financing that can be adapted for HIV self-testing at workplaces.
The primary audiences for this policy brief are ministries of health and labour, national HIV programmes, employers’ organizations, workers’ organizations (labour unions), enterprises, implementing partners, including civil society organizations, and health insurance agencies.
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In 2017, 3.6 million of the estimated 10 million people with TB worldwide were “missed” by national TB programmes (NTPs). Two thirds of them are thought to access TB treatment
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of questionable quality from public and private providers who are not engaged by the NTP. The quality of care provided in these settings is often not known or substandard. Closing these gaps and ensuring patient-centred care imply that quality-assured and affordable TB services must be made available wherever people choose to seek care.
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This toolkit aims to provide you with a brief introduction of what SA and its core principles are, and how you as a student can apply s
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everal of the existing tools for your own school to really make a difference.
French, Spanish and Arabic Version available: https://ifmsa.org/social-accountability/
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Due to high routine vaccination coverage, overall counts of diphtheria case have significantly declined in the Western Pacific Region recently. However, diphtheria is still prevalent in several countries a
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nd areas of the Region and remains a public health issue due to its high case fatality rate.
This Field Guide for Preparedness and Response to Diphtheria Outbreaks in the Western Pacific Region is a reference resource for Member States to develop national guidelines adapted to their local context. Countries may also use this Guide to facilitate outbreak preparedness and public health responses to reduce morbidity and mortality due to diphtheria.
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This report presents country, regional and global estimates of low birth weight for 2000, together with a detailed description of the methods used
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in calculating the estimates. Some limited data on trends are also included. The limitations of low-birth-weight data are described and recommendations are made for further improvements in the data for this important indicator of health.
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Policy brief, 24 July 2020
The COVID-19 pandemic has affected older people disproportionately, especially those living in long-term care facilities. In many countries, evidence shows that more than 40% of COVID-19 related deaths have been linked to
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long-term care facilities, with figures being as high as 80% in some high-income countries. Concerted action is needed to mitigate the impact across all aspects of long-term care, including home- and community-based care, given that most users and providers of care are those who are vulnerable to severe COVID-19.
This policy brief provides 11 policy objectives and key action points to prevent and manage COVID-19 across long-term care. Its intended audience is policy makers and authorities (national, subnational and local) involved in the COVID-19 pandemic. The brief builds on currently available evidence on the measures taken to prevent, prepare for and respond to the COVID‑19 pandemic across long-term care services including care providers
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Access to safe blood and blood products is recognized as one of the key requirements for delivery of modern
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health care in the journey towards health for all. The foundation of safe and sustainable blood supplies depends on the collection of blood from voluntary non-remunerated and low-risk donors. Data from the WHO Global Database for Blood Safety (GDBS) brings out several inadequacies related to the supply and safety of blood and blood products. These inadequacies include a number of variations in safe blood practices across the world, including the quantity of blood donated (voluntary and replacement types), quality and adequate testing of the donated blood (immunohaematology [IH] and transfusion-transmitted infections [TTIs]), rational use of blood and blood components such as appropriate patient blood management protocols. These variations are very high in countries of the South-East Asian Region and most of them are either low- or middle-income countries (LMICs).
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Adapted from well-established decision-making concepts and honed through practical application in resource-limited settings, the AFP Advocacy Portfolio includes:
1. Advocate for Family Planning, an
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introduction to AFP’s approach.
2. Develop a Strategy, featuring a tool to understand your context and AFP SMART: A Guide to Quick Wins, our 9-step approach to developing a focused, collaborative advocacy strategy that leads to quick wins.
3. Implement a Plan, tools to monitor your impact and make your case to decision makers.
4. Capture Results, with the AFP Results Cascade: A User’s Guide, a monitoring and evaluation tool that provides instructions to track a quick win or series of quick wins to long-term impact, and case study writing guidance.
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Measuring progress towards universal health coverage.
This sixth edition of Health at a Glance Asia/Pacific presents a set
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of key indicators of health status, the determinants of health, health care resources and utilisation, health care expenditure and financing and quality of care across 27 Asia-Pacific countries and territories. It also provides a series of dashboards to compare performance across countries and territories, and a thematic analysis on the impact of the COVID-19 outbreak on Asia/Pacific health systems.
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In Control imparts knowledge, provokes reflection and triggers curiosity. The first half of the book provides an overview of the organisations, pri
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nciples, frameworks and themes that every professional deploying to health emergencies should be aware of. The second half of the book provides practical advice to help professionals survive and thrive during their mission – from staying healthy, protecting oneself from cyber-attacks and coping with stress to building trust among the host community or dealing with language barriers and the press.
This handbook is free of charge and can be made available in small quantities as long as supply lasts. To order, please send this form to: incontrol-handbook@rki.de
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Antibiotics and other antimicrobial agents are invaluable life savers, particularly in resource-limited countries where infectious diseases are abundant. Both uncomplicated and severe in
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fections are potentially curable as long as the aetiological agents are susceptible to the antimicrobial drugs. The rapid rate with which antimicrobial agents are becoming ineffective due to resistance acquired as a result of unchecked overuse and misuse threatens to undo the benefit of controlling infections. The evidence for resistant microorganisms, many times to more than a single antimicrobial agent, has been observed globally. In Tanzania, there is evidence in the form of few scattered studies conducted in different parts of the country in a multitude of settings including health care facilities, the community, domesticated animals and wild animals
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WHY THIS GUIDE?
Because, in the face of crises and emergencies, it is vital to include a human rights perspective in responses. Vulnerable groups face major obstacles to accessing
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and benefiting from prevention, mitigation, and health care policies due to structural barriers of inequality. To offer guidelines to the countries of the Americas for crafting and implementing inclusive and accessible, human rights-based responses to a pandemic that is unprecedented in the region and in the world as a whole.
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This timely report comes at a decisive moment in history where
we can reshape urban environments and health systems for the
majority of the world
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’s population that live in cities. Enabling
this transformation are the SDGs, which have reconfigured how
governments and the international community need to plan and
implement actions to eradicate poverty and inequality, create
inclusive economic growth, preserve the planet and improve
population health. Central to this quest is to create equitable,
healthier cities for sustainable development.
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This document aims to assist policy‑makers, health care providers and researchers to understand key concepts in health ethics
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and to identify basic ethical questions surrounding health and health care. It illustrates the challenges of applying ethical principles to global public health and outlines practical strategies for dealing with those challenges.
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