The new treatment recommendations that extend the 2018 treat all recommendation for adults with chronic HCV infection to include adolescents and children down to 3 years, and to align the existing recommended pangenotypic direct-acting antiviral (DAA) regimens (SOF/DCV, SOF/VEL and G/P) for adults, ...to those for adolescents and children. This alignment is expected to simplify procurement, promote access to treatment among children in low- and middle-income countries and contribute to global efforts to eliminate the disease
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Rabies is a devastating and societally important zoonotic disease, which is transmitted principally to humans through the bite of infected dogs. This acute, progressive viral encephalitis has the hi...ghest case fatality of any infectious disease and kills tens of thousands of people annually, with children and impoverished communities being affected disproportionately.
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TB policies in 29 Countries
A survey of prevention, testing and treatment policies and practices
The purpose of this document is to present and promote the minimum requirements for IPC programmes at the national and health care facility level, identified by expert consensus according to available evidence and in the context ...te-to-highlight medbox">of the WHO core components.
The minimum requirements are defined as: IPC standards that should be in place at the national and facility level to provide minimum protection and safety to patients, HCWs and visitors, based on the WHO core components for IPC programmes.
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A module from the suite of health service capacity assessments in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, Interim Guidance 20 October 2020.
This self-assessment tool is designed for acute health-care... facilities (i.e. tertiary and secondary) but can be modified for the use in long-term care facilities, to help identify, prioritize and address the gaps in infection prevention and control (IPC) capacity in managing their response to COVID-19. The tool should be used by IPC professionals and/or those responsible for disaster planning or outbreak management in the facility (such as the response to the COVID-19 outbreak) at the start of the improvement process. A sample workplan template is provided to address gaps identified and record required actions.
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Despite being a curable and preventable disease, tuberculosis (TB) remains as one of the major challenges for health systems, globally. Every year, TB affects more than 10 million people and kills m...ore than 1.4 million people. WHO’s Digital Health for the End TB Strategy – an Agenda for Action outlines a conceptual framework in which advantageously positioned digital health solutions are matched to the most urgent needs of TB programmes. Video-supported treatment is a component of one of the four core functions of this framework, the Patient Care domain, and primarily supports the first pillar of the End TB Strategy. This quick guide provides information on the solutions available for asynchronous modes of video communication and how these can be of use to TB programmes.
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The frequency of infectious disease epidemics is increasing, and the role of the health sector in the management ...t medbox">of epidemics is crucial in terms of response. In the context of infectious disease epidemics, the use of climate-informed early warning systems (EWS) has the potential to increase the effectiveness of disease control by intervening before or at the beginning of the epidemic curve, instead of during the downward slope.
Currently, the initiation of interventions is heavily reliant on routine disease surveillance systems – data that often arrive too late for preventative response. However, forecasting of disease outbreaks using surveillance and weather information shows promising potential – there also remains further scope to examine seasonal climate forecasts. By combining these elements in new EWS based on computational models, it will be possible to improve both the timeliness and impact of disease control. The World Health Organization (WHO) is strengthening existing surveillance systems for infectious diseases to enable the development of more robust and timely EWS, which has resulted in the rapid development and innovation of EWS for disease outbreaks.
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The epidemiology of the disease is mediated by the interaction of the parasite (trypanosome) with the vectors (tsetse flies), as well as with the h...uman and animal hosts within a particular environment. Related to these interactions, the disease is confined in spatially limited areas called “foci”, which are located
in Sub-Saharan Africa, mainly in remote rural areas. The risk of contracting HAT is, therefore, determined by the possibility of contact of a human being with an infected tsetse fly. Epidemics of HAT were described at the beginning of the 20th century; intensive activities have been set up to confront the disease, and it was under control in the 1960s, with fewer than 5,000 cases reported in the whole continent.
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Cystic fibrosis (CF) was earlier thought to be a disease prevalent in the West among Caucasians. However, quite a number of recent studies have uncovered CF cases outside ...highlight medbox">of this region, and reported hundreds of unique and novel variant forms of CFTR. Here, we discuss the evidence of CF in parts of the world earlier considered to be rare; Africa, and Asia. This review also highlighted the CFTR mutation variations and new mutations discovered in these regions. This discovery implies that the CF data from these regions were earlier underestimated. The inadequate awareness of the disease in these regions might have contributed towards the poor diagnostic facilities, under-diagnosis or/and under-reporting, and the lack of CF associated health policies. Overall, these regions have a high rate of infant, childhood and early adulthood mortality due to CF. Therefore, there is a need for a thorough investigation of CF prevalence and to identify unique and novel variant mutations within these regions in order to formulate intervention plans, create awareness, develop mutation specific screening kits and therapies to keep CF mortality at bay.
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The protection of children and educational facilities is particularly important. Precautions are necessary to prevent the potential spread of COVID-19 in school settings; however, care must also be ...taken to avoid stigmatizing students and staff who may have been exposed to the virus. It is important to remember that COVID-19 does not differentiate between borders, ethnicities, disability status, age or gender. Education settings should continue to be welcoming, respectful, inclusive, and supportive environments to all. Measures taken by schools can prevent the entry and spread of COVID-19 by students and staff who may have been exposed to the virus, while minimizing disruption and protecting students and staff from discrimination.
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The cardiovascular disease continuum begins with risk factors such as diabetes mellitus (DM), progresses to vasculopathy and myocardial dysfunction, and finally ends with cardiovascular death. Diabetes is associated with a 2- to 4-fold increased ris...k for heart failure (HF). Moreover, HF patients with DM have a worse prognosis than those without DM. Diabetes can cause myocardial ischemia via micro- and macrovasculopathy and can directly exert deleterious effects on the myocardium. Hyperglycemia, hyperinsulinemia, and insulin resistance can cause alterations in vascular homeostasis. Then, reduced nitric oxide and increased reactive oxygen species levels favor inflammation leading to atherothrombotic progression and myocardial dysfunction. The classification, diagnosis, and treatment of HF for a patient with and without DM remain the same. Until now, drugs targeting neurohumoral and metabolic pathways improved mortality and morbidity in HF with reduced ejection fraction (HFrEF). Therefore, all HFrEF patients should receive guideline-directed medical therapy. By contrast, drugs modulating neurohumoral activity did not improve survival in HF with preserved ejection fraction (HFpEF) patients. Trials investigating whether sodium-glucose cotransporter-2 inhibitors are effective in HFpEF are on-going. This review will summarize the epidemiology, pathophysiology, and treatment of HF in diabetes.
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This document provides an overview of specific health care waste technologies for the treatment of solid infectious and sharp waste. For each technology, details ...medbox">of its operation, effects on the environment and health, requirements for installation, capacities for treating waste, examples of consumables and advantages and disadvantages are described. The document is designed for health care facility administrators and planners, WASH and infection prevention control staff, national planners, donors and partners.
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An analysis from the perspective of the health sector in Latin America and the Caribbean
Washington, D.C., 2017
Updated with information on Ebola virus disease and Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus
A wide variety of health events ranging in severity may occur related to air transport, requiring di...fferent responses or, perhaps, no response at all. The target audience for this guidance document includes the national focal points (NFP) for the IHR and public health authorities at PoE, as well as national aviation regulatory authorities, airport operators and personnel, aircraft operators, air crew and other stakeholders involved in air transport and emergency preparedness and response to public health events
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As a high-burden neglected tropical disease, soil-transmitted helminth (STH) infections remain a major problem in the world, especially among children under five years of age. Since young children a...re at high risk of being infected, STH infection can have a long-term negative impact on their life, including impaired growth and development. Stunting, a form of malnutrition in young children, has been long assumed as one of the risk factors in acquiring the STH infections. However, the studies on STH infection in children under five with stunting have been lacking, resulting in poor identification of the risk. Accordingly, we collected and reviewed existing related research articles to provide an overview of STH infection in a susceptible population of stunted children under five years of age in terms of prevalence and risk factors. There were 17 studies included in this review related to infection with Ascaris lumbricoides, Trichuris trichiura, hookworm, and Strongyloides stercoralis from various countries. The prevalence of STH infection in stunted children ranged from 12.5% to 56.5%. Increased inflammatory markers and intestinal microbiota dysbiosis might have increased the intensity of STH infection in stunted children that caused impairment in the immune system. While the age from 2 to 5 years along with poor hygiene and sanitation has shown to be the most common risk factors of STH infections in stunted children; currently there are no studies that show direct results of stunting as a risk factor for STH infection. While stunting itself may affect the pathogenesis of STH infection, further research on stunting as a risk factor for STH infection is encouraged.
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Non-communicable diseases (NCDs) are of increasing concern for society and national governments, as well as globally due to their high mortality rate. The main risk factors ...-highlight medbox">of NCDs can be classified into the categories of self-management, genetic factors, environmental factors, factors of medical conditions, and socio-demographic factors.
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“Continuum of HIV services refers to a comprehensive package of HIV prevention, diagnostic, treatment, care and support services provided for peo...ple at risk of HIV infection or living with HIV and their families”
August, 2018
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Glaucoma, a disease that gradually affects the optic nerve, is the second leading cause of vision loss globally, and it continues to pose a challenge to the eye health professionals.
Chagas disease caused by Trypanosoma cruzi is a public health issue in Latin America. This highly diverse parasite is divided into at least seven discrete typing units (DTUs) TcI-TcVI and Tcbat. Some DTUs have been associated with geographical distr...ibution in epidemiological scenarios and clinical manifestations, but these aspects remain poorly understood. Many studies have focused on studying the parasite and its vectors/hosts, using a wide variety of genetic markers and methods. Here, we performed a systematic review of the literature for the last 20 years to present an update of DTUs distribution in the Americas, collecting ecoepidemiological information. We found that the DTUs are widespread across the continent and that there is a whole gamma of genetic markers used for the identification and genotyping of the parasite. The data obtained in this descriptor could improve the molecular epidemiology studies of Chagas disease in endemic regions.
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