The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), the International Organization for Migration (IOM), Georgetown University, and the United Nations University have today launched new guidelines to provide the first-ever global policy framework that will help protect, include, and empower children on the ...move in the context of climate change.
The Guiding Principles for Children on the Move in the Context of Climate Change provides a set of 9 principles that address the unique and layered vulnerabilities of children on the move both internally and across borders as a result of the adverse impacts of climate change. Currently, most child-related migration policies do not consider climate and environmental factors, while most climate change policies overlook the unique needs of children.
The guidelines note that climate change is intersecting with existing environmental, social, political, economic, and demographic conditions contributing to people’s decisions to move. In 2020 alone, nearly 10 million children were displaced in the aftermath of weather-related shocks. With around one billion children – nearly half of the world’s 2.2 billion children – living in 33 countries at high risk of the impacts of climate change, millions more children could be on the move in the coming years.
Developed in collaboration with young climate and migration activists, academics, experts, policymakers, practitioners, and UN agencies, the guiding principles are based on the globally ratified Convention on the Rights of the Child and are further informed by existing operational guidelines and frameworks.
Recommendations for safeguarding the rights and well-being of children regardless of their location or migration status.
The guiding principles provide national and local governments, international organizations and civil society groups with a foundation to build policies that protect children’s rights. The organizations and institutions are calling on governments, local and regional actors, international organizations, and civil society groups to embrace the guiding principles to help protect, include, and empower children on the move in the context of climate change.
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Since late August 2022, cases of severe acute watery diarrhoea have been increasingly reported across Syria, concentrated
particularly along the Euphrates river. These were later confirmed to be cholera cases.3 Cholera is a disease caused by
bacteria that can be found ...hlight medbox">in faeces, and spreads through people consuming contaminated water or food. It causes severe
watery diarrhoea and vomiting which lead to dehydration. If treated immediately, less than 1% of cases result in patients
dying. However, if timely treatment is not available, cholera can lead to death within hours in 25 to 50% of cases. The
situation is critical in Syria as the local population is facing a severe water crisis due to drought, falling groundwater levels,
reduced flow in the Euphrates River, and reduced functionality of Alouk water station. REACH has been monitoring
developments in Northeast Syria through regular data collection cycles, remote sensing data, and rapid needs assessments
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Burns are a global public health problem, accounting for close to 200,000 deaths annually. The majority of these occur in low- and middle-income countries, where a number of constraints complicate the public health task of addressing burns. While th...e primary prevention of burns in low- and middle-income countries is a pressing need, the World Health Organization (WHO) also actively encourages further development of burn-care systems, including the training of health-care providers in the appropriate triage and management of people with burns.
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Awareness of autism has grown monumentally over the past 20 years. Yet, this increased awareness has not been accompanied by improvements in services to support autistic individuals and their families. Many fundamental questions remain about the car...e of people with autism—including which interventions are effective, for whom, when, and at what intensity. The Lancet Commission on the future of care and clinical research in autism aims to answer the question of what can be done in the next 5 years to address the current needs of autistic individuals and families worldwide.
Here you can download the articles and comments.
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This document is an addendum to the Revised Supplementary Appeal issued in April 2022, reflecting UNHCR’s updated financial requirements for the Ukraine situation for March to December 2022. UNHCR is appealing for an additional $170 million for ac...tivities within Ukraine, to scale up urgentlyneeded winterization and other ongoing programmes, under the four-month extension of the Ukraine Flash Appeal issued in August 2022.
Updated situation
There are 17.7 million people in Ukraine in urgent need of protection and assistance, including 6.2 million who are internally displaced. Housing conditions for millions of people have become increasingly perilous since the start of the international armed conflict.
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Background: Cardiovascular disease (CVD), mainly heart attack and stroke, is the
leading cause of premature mortality in low and middle income countries (LMICs).
Identifying and managing individuals at high risk of CVD is an important strategy to ...prevent and control CVD, in addition to multisectoral population-based interventions to reduce CVD risk factors in the entire population.
Methods: We describe key public health considerations in identifying and managing individuals at high risk of CVD in LMICs.
Results: A main objective of any strategy to identify individuals at high CVD risk is to maximize the number of CVD events averted while minimizing the numbers of
individuals needing treatment. Scores estimating the total risk of CVD (e.g. ten-year risk of fatal and non-fatal CVD) are available for LMICs, and are based on the main CVD risk factors (history of CVD, age, sex, tobacco use, blood pressure, blood cholesterol and diabetes status). Opportunistic screening of CVD risk factors enables identification of persons with high CVD risk, but this strategy can be widely applied in low resource settings only if cost effective interventions are used (e.g. the WHO Package of Essential NCD interventions for primary health care in low resource settings package) and if treatment (generally for years) can be sustained, including continued availability ofaffordable medications and funding mechanisms that allow people to purchase medications without impoverishing them (e.g. universal access to health care). Thisalso emphasises the need to re-orient health systems in LMICs towards chronic diseases management.
Conclusion: The large burden of CVD in LMICs and the fact that persons with high
CVD can be identified and managed along cost-effective interventions mean that
health systems need to be structured in a way that encourages patient registration, opportunistic screening of CVD risk factors, efficient procedures for the management of chronic conditions (e.g. task sharing) and provision of affordable treatment for those with high CVD risk. The focus needs to be in primary care because that is where most of the population can access health care and because CVD programmes can be run effectively at this level.
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A major problem facing the world is how to build peace following the ravages of increasingly protracted armed conflict. Armed conflicts leave behind shattered, divided societies that are at risk of repeating cycles of violence, and therefore need co...ncerted peacebuilding efforts. Conflicts also take a heavy toll on people’s mental health and psychosocial well-being. One in five people who live in a war zone will likely develop a mental disorder, and many others suffer from painful everyday stresses associated with multiple losses, family separation, gender-based violence (GBV), disability, climate change and ongoing insecurity, among other issues.
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Some 90 per cent of Yemen’s food has to be imported and since a Saudi-led coalition imposed a blockade of the country’s key northern ports more than a month ago, only over a third of the food its people ...">need is coming in.
More than 7 million people are now at acute risk of famine
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Objective: The study aimed to describe the current epidemiological, clinical and immunological profile of newly
detected HIV - positive patients in Northern Benin by 2016. Methods: It was a prospective study conducted from May 2 to
October 31, 201...6 on three main sites of care of people living with HIV (PLHIV) in the department of Borgou in Benin. All
new cases of HIV infection have been systematically and comprehensively recruited. Initial epidemiological, clinical and
immunological data were collected using a questionnaire. These data were entered and analyzed using the Epi Info 7 software.
Results: In total, 185 adults (68 male and 117 female) newly screened HIV positive were included in this study. The middle age
was 36.2 ± 10.9 years and the sex ratio was 0.6 One hundred and thirty-five patients (73%) were between 25 and 50 years old.
In terms of the profession, 132 patients (71.3%) were engaged in liberal activities (craftmen, traders and retailers). The
majority was schooled (113 or 61.1%) and resided in urban areas (146 or 79%). One hundred and sixteen patients lived in
couple (62.7%) with an average monthly income estimated at 70 US Dollars. Clinically, 123 patients (66.5%) were in WHO
stage III. The body mass index was over 18.5 kg/m2 in 124 patients (67%). The median number of TCD4 lymphocytes was
254.5 cells/ml and 25 patients (13.5%) had a number of CD4 over 500 cells/ml. HIV1 was really predominant (97.8%). Most
patients (152 or 82.2%) had been screened for clinical suspicion. Conclusion: HIV infection in Benin remains the prerogative
of young, female, educated and poor people. Screening is delayed and hence the need to develop innovative strategies for early
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HIV infection, due to the immunosuppressant that leads, nowadays constitutes an aggravating factor of endemic tuberculosis. Tuberculosis remains a huge burden to human health, even in the early 21st century. The situation is deteriorating ...s="attribute-to-highlight medbox">in many countries, particularly because of the synergy with the HIV epidemic and the emergence of multidrug-resistant (MDR) and extensively drug resistant (XDR) tuberculosis. The urgent development of new tools that can improve the diagnosis, prevention and/or treatment of tuberculosis and other major mycobacterium diseases depends largely on the progress of basic and applied research. Faced with this situation, there is an urgent need for effective strategies and actions to permanently solve the problem of this endemic disease whose impact is too negative on people’s lives.
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Schistosomiasis, commonly known as bilharzia, is an acute and chronic tropical disease caused by trematodes of the genus Schistosoma. The schistosome parasite is transmitted through a snail intermediate host with the human being the definitive host. Worldwide, schistosomiasis continues to cause a pu...blic health problem with 779 million people exposed to the infection. The disease is present in 78 countries and endemic in 52 of those countries where an estimated 90% of people need treatment. Schistosomiasis has been successfully controlled in many countries but its burden remains high in Africa, particularly in sub-Saharan countries.
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Soil transmitted helminth (STH) infections are among the most common human infections worldwide with over 1 billion people affected. Many estimates of STH infection are often based on school-aged children (SAC). This study produced predictive risk-m...aps of STH on a more finite scale, estimated the number of people infected, and the amount of drug required for preventive chemotherapy (PC) in Ogun state, Nigeria. Georeferenced STH infection data obtained from a cross-sectional survey at 33 locations between July 2016 and November 2018, together with remotely-sensed environmental and socio-economic data were analyzed using Bayesian geostatistical modelling. Stepwise variable selection procedure was employed to select a parsimonious set of predictors to predict risk and spatial distribution of STH infections. The number of persons (pre-school ages children, SAC and adults) infected with STH were estimated, with the amount of tablets needed for preventive chemotherapy. An overall prevalence of 17.2% (95% CI 14.9, 19.5) was recorded for any STH infection. Ascaris lumbricoides infections was the most predominant, with an overall prevalence of 13.6% (95% CI 11.5, 15.7), while Hookworm and Trichuris trichiura had overall prevalence of 4.6% (95% CI 3.3, 5.9) and 1.7% (95% CI 0.9, 2.4), respectively. The model-based prevalence predictions ranged from 5.0 to 23.8% for Ascaris lumbricoides, from 2.0 to 14.5% for hookworms, and from 0.1 to 5.7% for Trichuris trichiura across the implementation units. The predictive maps revealed a spatial pattern of high risk in the central, western and on the border of Republic of Benin. The model identified soil pH, soil moisture and elevation as the main predictors of infection for A. lumbricoides, Hookworms and T. trichiura respectively. About 50% (10/20) of the implementation units require biannual rounds of mass drug administration. Approximately, a total of 1.1 million persons were infected and require 7.8 million doses. However, a sub-total of 375,374 SAC were estimated to be infected, requiring 2.7 million doses. Our predictive risk maps and estimated PC needs provide useful information for the elimination of STH, either for resource acquisition or identifying priority areas for delivery of interventions in Ogun State, Nigeria.
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Clinical Child Psychology and Psychiatry Volume 28, Issue Pages 3-14
The Russian invasion of Ukraine on 24th February 2022 has prompted this article to summarise some of the salient mental health issues experienced by young asylum seekers and refugees focussing on resettlement countries, drawing on... the substantial literature, for Child and Adolescent Mental Health Practitioners. Firstly, the various UNHCR categories of persons affected by war and persecution and statistics are described. By July 2022, over 100 million people globally were of concern to UNHCR, a number increased by the many millions of refugees fleeing Ukraine to neighbouring countries. Selected findings on the psychiatric epidemiology of young refugees are summarised, and some principles of Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service delivery and treatments are outlined. The research on Ukrainian refugees’ mental health is limited and this is an area that requires further investigation alongside active attempts to meet their mental health needs.
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The pharmacological treatment of heart failure has evolved over the last three decades since the demonstration of the effect of angiotensinconverting enzyme inhibitors on major cardiovascular events in patients with heart failure with reduced ejecti...on fraction. Composite analysis of heart failure with reduced ejection fraction trials and the recent identification of newer drug treatments show early benefits on the major cardiovascular outcomes, ushering in a change of the treatment strategy; from a ‘sequential’ initiation of the treatments to a ‘simultaneous’ initiation to harness the early benefits. The adoption and implementation of these changes at the bedside have been dismal in many healthcare settings. Papua New Guinea, like many other lower-to-middle-income countries, is facing many barriers that impact on the care of heart failure patients. It needs to adopt and implement these changes to provide evidence-based treatment for its people with heart failure with reduced ejection fraction.
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Demographic and epidemiological transitions are changing the age structure of the population and the most common diseases. Non-communicable respiratory diseases are an increasing problem at both ends of the age range in low-income and middle-income ...countries. In children, who represent a large proportion of the total population, the increasing problem of asthma is a strain on health services. Improved survival of the older population is increasing the proportion of morbidity and mortality attributable to chronic lung diseases. Health services in low-resource countries are poorly adapted to treating chronic diseases. Designed to respond episodically to acute disease, almost all historical investment has focused on infectious diseases. Crucial to the successful management of chronic diseases is an infrastructure designed to support pro-active management, providing not only an accurate diagnosis, but also a secure supply of cost effective drugs at an affordable price. The absence of such an infrastructure in many countries and the market failure that makes drugs generally more expensive in low-resource regions means that many people with chronic non-communicable lung diseases are not given effective treatment. This has damaging economic consequences. The common causes of poor lung health in lowincome countries are not the same as those in richer countries, and there is a need to study why they are so common and how best to manage them.
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KEY MESSAGES
Always talk to a GBV specialist first to understand what GBV services are available in your area. Some services may take the form of hotlines, a mobile app or other remote support.
Be aware of any other available services ...ass="attribute-to-highlight medbox">in your area. Identify services provided by humanitarian partners such as health, psychosocial support, shelter and non-food items. Consider services provided by communities such as mosques/ churches, women’s groups and Disability Service Organizations.
Remember your role. Provide a listening ear, free of judgment. Provide accurate, up-to-date information on available services. Let the survivor make their own choices. Know what you can and cannot manage. Even without a GBV actor in your area, there may be other partners, such as a child protection or mental health specialist, who can support survivors that require additional attention and support. Ask the survivor for permission before connecting them to anyone else. Do not force the survivor if s/he says no.
Do not proactively identify or seek out GBV survivors. Be available in case someone asks for support.
Remember your mandate. All humanitarian practitioners are mandated to provide non-judgmental and non-discriminatory support to people in need regardless of: gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, marital status, disability status, age, ethnicity/tribe/race/religion, who perpetrated/committed violence, and the situation in which violence was committed. Use a survivor-centered approach by practicing:
Respect: all actions you take are guided by respect for the survivor’s choices, wishes, rights and dignity.
Safety: the safety of the survivor is the number one priority.
Confidentiality: people have the right to choose to whom they will or will not tell their story. Maintaining confidentiality means not sharing any information to anyone.
Non-discrimination: providing equal and fair treatment to anyone in need of support.
If health services exist, always provide information on what is available. Share what you know, and most importantly explain what you do not. Let the survivor decide if s/he wants to access them. Receiving quality medical care within 72 hours can prevent transmission of sexually transmitted infections (STIs), and within 120 hours can prevent unwanted pregnancy.
Provide the opportunity for people with disabilities to communicate to you without the presence of their caregiver, if wished and does not endanger or create tension in that relationship.
If a man or boy is raped it does not mean he is gay or bisexual. Gender-based violence is based on power, not someone’s sexuality.
Sexual and gender minorities are often at increased risk of harm and violence due to their sexual orientation and/or gender identity. Actively listen and seek to support all survivors.
Anyone can commit an act of gender-based violence including a spouse, intimate partner, family member, caregiver, in-law, stranger, parent or someone who is exchanging money or goods for a sexual act.
Anyone can be a survivor of gender-based violence – this includes, but isn’t limited to, people who are married, elderly individuals or people who engage in sex work.
Protect the identity and safety of a survivor. Do not write down, take pictures or verbally share any personal/identifying information about a survivor or their experience, including with your supervisor. Put phones and computers away to avoid concern that a survivor’s voice is being recorded.
Personal/identifying information includes the survivor’s name, perpetrator(s) name, date of birth, registration number, home address, work address, location where their children go to school, the exact time and place the incident took place etc.
Share general, non-identifying information
To your team or sector partners in an effort to make your program safer.
To your support network when seeking self-care and encouragement.
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J Glob Health 2021;11:03082.
The National Strategic Plan is based on the following guiding principles:
1) Life-course approach: adolescence is a key decade in the course of life that influences the health outcomes later in...> life.
2) Comprehensive approach: It recognizes the cross cutting health and development needs of young people such as intentional and unintentional injuries and violence, SRH, HIV/AIDS, mental health, substance use, violence, substance use and substance use disorders, infectious diseases and common conditions.
3) Equity and rights-based approach: focusing on equitable access to services to all adolescents including vulnerable groups and the recognizing the need to move from aspirations to obligations in fulflling young people rights for the highest attainable standard of health.
4) Multisectoral approach: recognizing cognizant of the fact that holistic development of young people requires multisectoral approach involving education, social welfare.
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“We must not forget that no matter where we are or how old we are, we can all work for life and take action.” Francisco Vera, 15, UNICEF Child Advocate
The Young Climate Activists toolkit was created by advocates of all ages who, like you, are deeply concerned about our planet's future. Havin...g faced numerous challenges in advocacy and action, our aim is to provide clear, concise and easily understandable information about global, regional and national climate action. This will equip you for meaningful and informed participation. The toolkit booklets are designed to be read sequentially to build a comprehensive understanding of each topic, though they can also be consulted independently based on your needs.
This is the global volume of the Young Climate Activists Toolkit and is designed to complement the regional toolkits for Latin America and the Caribbean, and the Middle East and North Africa Region.
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This country cooperation strategy (CCS) outlines how the World Health Organization (WHO) will work with the Lao People’s Democratic Republic over the next five years (2024–2028), supporting the implementation of the five-year health sector devel...opment plans and the Health Sector Reform Strategy 2021–2030 to attain the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030.
The Lao People’s Democratic Republic experienced substantial economic growth in the 30 years prior to the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, contributing to reduced poverty and significant progress toward the SDGs. However, the COVID-19 pandemic brought this development to a halt. It was anticipated that the COVID-19 recovery and the tremendous population growth in recent years would provide opportunities for a shift toward more sustainable and inclusive development in the years ahead. In 2023, however, the contrary was the case. Rural residents, including many ethnic minorities, continued to face marginalization because of limited access to education, health care and economic opportunities.
Despite the challenges of COVID-19 and other disease outbreaks, the country has made significant improvements in health. Nonetheless, progress has been uneven and not everyone has benefited from these achievements. In the mountainous region, many people lack access to quality health care because of the unequal distribution of well-trained health-care workers. Preventable deaths due to poor-quality health care for children and newborns, infants and mothers remain a concern, as do communicable diseases such as sexually transmitted infections and tuberculosis. The increasing burden of noncommunicable diseases and the health impact of worsening climate change further heighten the need for strengthened and resilient health systems, which are at risk due to an underfunded health sector and weak economy.
This CCS aims to address remaining and future challenges as well as health needs while creating an impact that is sustainable. It identifies three strategic priorities and nine deliverables (Table 1) to support the attainment of the national vision of Health for all by all, as articulated in the 9th Health Sector Development Plan 2021–2025. It contributes to the country’s goals to achieve universal health coverage, graduate from least developed country status by 2026 and attain SDGs by 2030.
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