Eight years after Super Typhoon Haiyan, the most destructive storm to ever hit the Philippines, Super Typhoon Rai brought similar torrential rains, violent winds, mudslides, floods and storm surges to central parts of the Philippines, leaving a wide path of destruction and debris in its wake. While ...not as powerful as Haiyan in terms of wind strength, evidence shows that Rai damaged houses, infrastructure and livelihoods on a comparable scale or in even greater numbers. Most striking, Rai damaged 1.57 million homes, 500,000 more than Haiyan, across 11 of the Philippines 17 regions, with around 180,000-200,000 people still displaced – either still in evacuation centers or staying with friends, family or other temporary housing.
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This publication presents the Agenda for the Americas on Health, Environment, and Climate Change 2021–2030 (the Agenda). The Agenda is a call to action to the health sector to lead the charge to address environmental determinants of health in the Americas. The Pan American Health Organization (PAH...O) will work with Member States to achieve its goal and objective to ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages using a sustainable and equitable approach that places a priority on reducing health inequity. The Agenda has been developed under the umbrella of the WHO Global Strategy on Health, Environment, and Climate Change, and builds upon the commitments set forth in the Sustainable Health Agenda for the Americas 2018–2030 and the PAHO Strategic Plan 2020–2025. The Agenda was developed in consultation with the Technical Advisory Group and through a consensus-driven decision-making process with Member States during the 2019–2020 period. Looking toward the achievement of Sustainable Development Goal 3, the Agenda focuses on: improving the performance of environmental public health programs and institutions; fostering environmentally resilient and sustainable health systems; and promoting environmentally healthy and resilient cities and communities. Its implementation will be context-specific, based on the needs and realities of the countries. It will benefit countries and territories by promoting good governance practices, strengthening the leadership and coordination roles of the health sector, fostering cross-sectoral action, focusing on primary prevention, and enhancing evidence and communication. It will facilitate access to human, technical, and financial resources necessary to address environmental determinants of health and ensure that the Region is fully engaged in global health, environment, and climate change processes and agreements. The objective of the Agenda is to strengthen the capacity of health actors in the health and non-health sectors to address and adapt to environmental determinants of health (EDHs), prioritizing populations living in conditions of vulnerability, in order to meet Outcome 18 of the PAHO Strategic Plan 2020–2025 directly and several other outcomes of the Plan indirectly. To address and adapt to the challenges of EDHs in the Region, an integrated and evidence-informed approach within the health sector and across sectors will be needed, one enabled, and supported by good governance practices, adequate management mechanisms, high-level political will, and adequate human, technical, technological, and financial resources.
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Almost eight years of active fighting have had profound consequences on the lives of millions of people in the conflict-affected Donetska and Luhanska oblasts of eastern Ukraine. An estimated 2.9 million people are projected to need humanitarian assistance in 2022, with some 55 per cent living in th...e non-Government controlled area (NGCA).1 1 According to the national Ukrainian legislation, such areas have been defined as the temporarily occupied territories of Donetska and Luhanska oblasts.
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A framework to implement the Agenda for the Americas on Health, Environment, and Climate Change 2021–2030
This Guidance Note is meant to help protection cluster coordinators apply nexus approaches in a practical way by, providing concrete steps and means to address prevalent or longstanding protection issues, risk patterns, trends and chronic vulnerabilities. The guidance calls for a practical, problem-...solving approach that seeks opportunities to identify and collaborate with actors beyond the humanitarian sphere to address deep-rooted protection issues
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The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) launched a new Framework for Environmental and Social Management (FESM) to ensure that both people and the environment are protected from any potential impacts of FAO programmes and projects.
“This Framework ensures that our proj...ects do both “no harm” and support the transformation to more efficient, more inclusive, more resilient and more sustainable agrifood systems by upholding the highest international standards for risk management,” FAO Director-General QU Dongyu explained during a virtual event.
The Framework, which includes key elements of a people-centered approach and establishes environmental and social performance requirements for FAO programming, is also intended to ensure that all stakeholders, including local and indigenous communities, have ample opportunities to actively participate in projects’ activities and to voice their concerns about them.
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This report includes six case studies from 12 individuals with lived experience of diverse health conditions. These case studies explore the topics of power dynamics and power reorientation towards individuals with lived experience; informed decision-making and health literacy; community engagement ...across broader health networks and health systems; lived experience as evidence and expertise; exclusion and the importance of involving groups that are marginalized; and advocacy and human rights.
It is the first publication in the WHO Intention to action series, which aims to enhance the limited evidence base on the impact of meaningful engagement and address the lack of standardized approaches on how to operationalise meaningful engagement. The Intention to action series aims to do this by providing a platform from which individuals with lived experience, and organizational and institutional champions, can share solutions, challenges and promising practices related to this cross-cutting agenda. The Intention to action series also aims to provide powerful narratives,inspiration and evidence towards the Fourth United Nations High Level Meeting on NCDs in 2025 and achieving the 2030 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
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Children with disabilities are particularly vulnerable in humanitarian settings, yet they are often not able to access the services and protection they need. While multiple factors create these barriers, a major cause is how data about children with disabilities is collected and mapped. Data collect...ion processes often exclude or underrepresent the views of children with disabilities and thier caretakers. When the experiences of children with disabilities and their caretakers are not defined and collected, they become excluded from mainstreamed protective services, which are meant to serve all children. Children with disabilities also do not get the specialised interventions they need.
This guidance note explores how to use qualitative methods to create more robust assessment processes to ensure more effective programming and services for children with disabilities. This note provides promising practices for engaging with children with disabilities and includes sample tools that can be tailored to fit the needs of a particular assessment process. The note also explores the importance of thoughtful cross-sectoral responses so that children with disabilities, and their families, are carefully considered in areas like water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH), education, health, and nutrition, and therefore receive the holistic support they need and deserve.
This note is intended for a broad audience of relevant child protection actors, including practitioners, coordination groups, researchers, and donors. The information is not limited to one type of humanitarian setting, geographic region, or culture. As a result, the practices and guidance should be adapted to each specific context, ideally in partnership with well-informed local actors, such as representatives from local organisations for persons with disabilities.
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The key actions, activities, and approaches in this document are organized within each of the 5Cs (see Table 1 in the PDF) and those of the Strategic preparedness and response plan (SPRP) pillars as follows:
National action plan key activities, prioritized for the current context and the current ...understanding of the threat of SARS-CoV-2
A. Transition from emergency response to longer term COVID-19 disease management.
B. Integrate activities into routine systems.
C. Strengthen global health security.
Special considerations for fragile, conflict-affected and vulnerable (including humanitarian) settings
WHO global and regional support to Member States to implement their national action plans
Key guidance documents for reference
This is a living document that will be updated to incorporate new technical guidance in response to the evolving epidemiological situation. National plans should be implemented in accordance with the principles of inclusiveness, respect for human rights, and equity.
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Version 2 (unedited). The Basic Needs Analysis (BNA) is a multi-sector needs analysis approach that can be applied in both sudden onset and protracted emergencies. The methodology comprises the Guidance (this document) presenting the conceptual BNA framework and related processes, and a Toolbox, whi...ch includes tools, templates, training materials, and examples drawn from its first pilot, in Borno State(Nigeria).
The BNA is conceived to go hand in hand with the Facilitator’s Guide for the Response Options Analysis and Planning (a separate document), as it is part of a broader response planning process (see The BNA within the ). It shall be carried out with other assessments on the operational environment and would not add any value if undertaken in isolation.
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Division of Noncommunicable Diseases | draft guidelines on diagnosis and management of a chronic immune-mediated enteropathy called celiac disease. This disease is caused is mainly caused in genetically susceptible individuals by ingestion of gluten proteins that are present in wheat, barley and oat...s.
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Kangaroo mother care is a method of care of preterm infants. The method involves infants being carried, usually by the mother, with skin-to-skin contact. This guide is intended for health professionals responsible for the care of low-birth-weight and preterm infants. Designed to be adapted to local ...conditions, it provides guidance on how to organize services at the referral level and on what is needed to provide effective kangaroo mother care. The guide includes practical advice on when and how the kangaroo-mother-care method can best be applied.
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A manual for physicians and other senior health workers. This fourth revision of the manual reflects recent clinical experience and research findings in diarrhoea case management. Compared to earlier versions, it includes revised guidelines on the management of children with acute diarrhoea using th...e new reduced (low) osmolarity ORS formulation and using zinc supplements, which have been shown to reduce duration and severity of diarrhoeal episodes, and revised guidelines for the management of bloody diarrhoea. Guidelines in the manual are based on the revised WHO chart that are included at the end of this document.
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Guidelines for the Management of common childhood Illness. 2nd edition
These guidelines focus on the management of the major causes of childhood mortality in most developing countries, such as newborn problems, pneumonia, diarrhoea, malaria, meningitis, septicaemia, measles and related conditions, ...severe acute malnutrition and paediatric HIV/AIDS. It also covers common procedures, patient monitoring and supportive care on the wards and some common surgical conditions that can be managed in small hospitals.
A smart phone and tablet application is available from the Apple or Google Play Store.
Special attention is drawn to the following sections, which are particulary relevant within the COVID-19 context:
Chapter 4: information on cough and difficulty in breathing, pneumonia and bronchiolitis;
Chapter 10: information on essential supportive care including feeding, fluid and oxygen provision;
Annex 1: information on related practical procedures.
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The Manual for Participants is primarily meant for the participants of a 3 and a half day training course in Emergency Triage, Assessment and Treatment.
Developing protocols for use with refugees
and internally displaced persons
First Global Patient Safety Challenge Clean Care is Safer Care
The WHO Guidelines on Hand Hygiene in Health Care provide health-care workers (HCWs), hospital administrators and health authorities with a thorough review of evidence on hand hygiene in health care and specific recommendations to impro...ve practices and reduce transmission of pathogenic microorganisms to patients and HCWs. The present Guidelines are intended to be implemented in any situation in which health care is delivered either to a patient or to a specific group in a population. Therefore, this concept applies to all settings where health care is permanently or occasionally performed, such as home care by birth attendants.
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