WHO estimates that in 2015, 257 million people were living with chronic hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection worldwide, and that 900 000 died from HBV infection, mostly through the development of cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma. Worldwide, the majority of persons with chronic hepatitis B infecti...on and associated deaths in adulthood acquired their infection at birth through mother-to-child perinatal transmission or in early childhood.
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Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) has emerged as a major public health problem all over the world. Infections caused by resistant microbes fail to respond to treatment, resulting in prolonged illness and greater risk of death. This document focuses on the mechanism to develop a practically applicable h...ospital antibiotic policy and standard treatment guidelines (STG). In addition, the document contains information on various effective strategies for implementation of STG. It also discusses various activities and information required for the development of the antibiogram, antibiotic policy and standard treatment guidelines, such as surveillance programmes, the cause and controlling strategies for AMR and HAI; performance measures of antibiogram, antibiotic policy and standard treatment guidelines. A model hospital STG for community-acquired pneumonia in adults is included.
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HIV, viral hepatitis and STI epidemics, particularly among people who inject drugs and other key populations, continue to be fuelled by laws and policies criminalizing sex work; drug use or possession; diverse forms of gender expression and sexuality; stigma and discrimination; gender discrimination...; violence; lack of community empowerment and other violations of human rights. These sociostructural factors limit access to health services, constrain how these services are
delivered and diminish their effectiveness.
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Overuse and misuse of antibiotics in animals and humans is contributing to the rising threat of antibiotic resistance. Some types of bacteria that cause serious infections in humans have already developed resistance to most or all of the available treatments, and there are very... few promising options in the research pipeline
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Healthy people, healthy animals and a healthy environment worldwide with the One Health approach.
The COVID-19 pandemic has drastically demonstrated just how close the link is between humans, animals, and the environment, and has highlighted and aggravated existing challenges. The destruction of na...tural habitats and displacement of species, trade in wild animals, resource-intensive lifestyles and conditions, non-sustainable food systems and, in particular, industrial agriculture and intensive livestock farming are the causes of the emergence of zoonoses as well as numerous other communicable and non-communicable, chronic diseases.
The One Health approach focuses precisely on such interaction between humans, animals, and the environment.
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This short brief describes the main findings and the key lessons learned from the research project "Evaluation of the impact of alcohol control policies on morbidity and mortality in Lithuania and other Baltic states", funded by the United States National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism fo...r the period 2000–2025. The WHO-backed project aims to assess the effects of alcohol control policies implemented in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania and to investigate the impact they have had on both people's health and the countries' economies, based on concrete actions taken. The key findings of the project demonstrate that alcohol control policies such as taxation and availability measures decrease all-cause mortality and reduce inequalities, and that dismantling alcohol control policies has the opposite effect on population health. They also highlight that consumption of unrecorded alcohol will not necessarily go up if taxation is increased and that specific countermeasures can be taken to prevent an increase in unrecorded consumption.
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The COVID-19 pandemic has raised profound ethical challenges on an unprecedented global scale. These challenges include how to allocate scarce resources (especially vaccines and therapeutics), both within and between countries, whether and when to mandate vaccines and/or masks, whether and how to co...nduct public health surveillance, whether to issue vaccine passports, and how to address stark international and intranational inequities. In addition, there have been ethical concerns about the conduct of COVID-19 research, such as the appropriateness of challenge studies.
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The Asia Pacific Observatory on Health Systems and Policies is a collaborative partnership which supports and promotes evidence-based health policy making in the Asia Pacific Region. Based in WHO’s Regional Office for South-East Asia, it brings together governments, international agencies, foundat...ions, civil society and the research community with the aim of linking systematic and scientific analysis of health systems in the Asia Pacific Region with the decision-makers who shape policy and practice.
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"This is the final report of the six-year collaboration between the WHO Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse and the Gulbenkian Global Mental Health Platform, an initiative of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation aimed at reducing the global burden of mental health through the development a...nd application of evidence and good practices to global mental health."
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A Review of Existing Policy Frameworks.
Report III Conversations on Planetary Health
This policy brief describes key HIV viral load thresholds and the available viral load testing approaches for monitoring how well antiretroviral therapy is working for people living with HIV. It provides clarification for and elaborates upon the current treatment monitoring algorithm from the Consol...idated guidelines on HIV prevention, testing, treatment, service delivery and monitoring: recommendations for a public health approach.
This information can help people living with HIV to live healthy lives, ensure that HIV is not transmitted to other people and support policy-makers in determining the optimal allocation of resources for viral load testing and communicating the results.
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From 2000 to 2010, Rwanda implemented comprehensive health sector reforms to strengthen the public health system, with the aim of reducing maternal and newborn deaths in line with Millennium Development Goal 5, among many other improvements in national health. Based on a systematic review of the lit...erature, national policy documents and three Demographic & Health Surveys (2000, 2005 and 2010), this paper describes the reforms and the policies they were based on, and provides data on the extent of Rwanda’s progress in expanding the coverage of four key women’s health services. Progress took place in 2000–2005 and became more rapid after 2006, mostly in rural areas, when the national facility-based childbirth policy, performance-based financing, and community-based health insurance were scaled up. Between 2006 and 2010, the following increases in coverage took place as compared to 2000–2005, particularly in rural areas, where most poor women live: births with skilled attendance (77% increase vs. 26%), institutional delivery (146% increase vs. 8%), and contraceptive prevalence (351% increase vs. 150%). The primary factors in these improvements were increases in the health workforce and their skills, performance-based financing, community-based health insurance, and better leadership and governance. Further research is needed to determine the impact of these changes on health outcomes in women and children.
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The mission of the Women’s Health Council is to inform and influence the development of health policy to ensure the maximum health and social gain for women in Ireland.
Its membership is representative of a wide range of expertise and interest in women’s health.
The Women’s Health Council ...has five functions detailed in its Statutory Instruments:
1. Advising the Minister for Health and Children on all aspects of women’s health.
2. Assisting the development of national and regional policies
and strategies designed to increase health gain and social gain for women.
3. Developing expertise on women’s health within the health services.
4. Liaising with other relevant international bodies which have similar functions as the Council.
5. Advising other Government Ministers at their request.
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This policy brief aims to provide a review of the current progress on implementing the Burkina Faso national action plan on AMR, identifies critical gaps, and highlights findings to accelerate further progress in the human health sector. The target audience includes all those concerned with implemen...ting actions to combat antimicrobial resistance in Burkina Faso.
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