The World Health Organization's cholera fact sheet provides essential information about cholera, an acute diarrheal infection caused by ingesting food or water contaminated with Vibrio cholerae bacteria. The disease remains a global public health threat, particularly in areas lacking safe water and ...adequate sanitation. While many infected individuals exhibit mild or no symptoms, severe cases can lead to rapid dehydration and death if untreated. Prevention focuses on ensuring access to clean water, proper sanitation, and hygiene practices. Effective treatment primarily involves prompt administration of oral rehydration solutions. The fact sheet also highlights the importance of surveillance, preparedness, and response strategies to control outbreaks.
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This guideline provides updated, evidence-informed guidance on the percentage of total fat in the diet to reduce the risk of unhealthy weight gain.
This guideline is intended for a wide audience involved in the development, design and implementation of policies and programmes in nutrition and pub...lic health. This guideline includes a recommended level of total fat intake which can be used by policy-makers and programme managers to address various aspects of dietary fat in their populations through a range of policy actions and public health interventions.
The guidance in this guideline replaces previous WHO guidance on total fat intake, including that from the 1989 WHO Study Group on Diet, Nutrition and the Prevention of Chronic Diseases and the 2002 Joint WHO/FAO Expert Consultation on Diet, Nutrition and the Prevention of Chronic Diseases. The guidance in this guideline should be considered in the context of that from other WHO guidelines on healthy diets.
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Trachoma is the leading infectious cause of blindness worldwide. In April 2023, it was a public health problem
in approximately 40 countries, with an estimated 116 million people at risk and 1.5 million people affected
by the late blinding stage of the disease (1). About 84% of those at risk of tr...achoma are in the World Health
Organization (WHO)’s African Region; about 52% of those at risk of trachoma live in Ethiopia
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This document updates the earlier version published in April 2020. In recent weeks, information on the potential use of chloroquine or hydroxychloroquine for the treatment of people with COVID-19 has been disseminated in academic journals and public media. Although there are now ongoing clinical tri...als testing the efficacy and safety of several medicines for COVID-19, as of the date of this document, there is a lack of quality evidence to demonstrate chloroquine and/or hydroxychloroquine are effective in the treatment of COVID-19. Evidence is recently emerging via small studies with sub-optimal methodologies that are conflicting.
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This document has been prepared based on the evidence currently available about
Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) transmission (human-to-human transmission via respiratory droplets or direct contact from an infected individual).
It is recommended to use it in conjunction with the published World... Health Organization
(WHO) Handbook for management of public health events on board ships.
The target audience of this documents is any authority involved in public health response to
a COVID-19 public health event on board ships, including International Health Regulations
(IHR) National Focal Point (NFP), port health authorities, local, provincial and national health
surveillance and response system, as well as port operators and ship operators
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27 May 2021
All countries should increase their level of preparedness, alert and response to identify, manage and care for new cases of COVID-19. Countries should prepare to respond to different public health scenarios, recognizing that there is no one-size-fits-all approach to managing cases and o...utbreaks of COVID-19. Each country should assess its risk and rapidly implement the necessary measures at the appropriate scale to reduce both COVID-19 transmission and economic, public and social impacts.
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interim guidance, 27 May 2021
All countries should increase their level of preparedness, alert and response to identify, manage and care for new cases of COVID-19. Countries should prepare to respond to different public health scenarios, recognizing that there is no one-size-fits-all approach to ma...naging cases and outbreaks of COVID-19. Each country should assess its risk and rapidly implement the necessary measures at the appropriate scale to reduce both COVID-19 transmission and economic, public and social impacts.
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This summary outlines the burden of targeted diseases and program implementation outcomes in Rwanda. The control of neglected tropical diseases represents a major challenge to those providing healthcare services in the endemic countries. The purpose of this country profile is to provide public healt...h professionals with the most recently available epidemiological information on diseases for which a strategy and tools to implement large-scale preventive chemotherapy exist.
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RBC/IHDPC/ EID Division | November2011 - The aim of the standard operating procedures is to guide health care providers and public health
experts from various levels of the health system in the implementation of enhanced surveillance of meningococcal meningitis.
The National Malaria Elimination Strategic Plan (NMESP) 2024–2028 of Ghana outlines the country’s roadmap to shift from malaria control to elimination. Despite major progress—like reducing malaria deaths from nearly 2,800 in 2012 to 151 in 2022—malaria remains a major public health challenge... in Ghana.
The plan aims to reduce malaria deaths by 90% and cases by 50% by 2028 (compared to 2022), and to eliminate malaria entirely in 21 low-burden districts. It includes a mix of interventions such as insecticide-treated nets, indoor residual spraying, seasonal chemoprevention, malaria vaccination, and strong surveillance systems.
The strategy is tailored to the local malaria burden, promotes community engagement, relies on multisectoral partnerships, and ensures adequate resource mobilization. Its ultimate goal is to protect Ghana’s population, improve public health, and support the country’s socioeconomic development.
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This operational guidance provides a structured approach to support countries in sustaining priority services for HIV, viral hepatitis and sexually transmitted infections in the context of reduced external funding. The guidance is intended for national governments, public health programmes, communit...y-led organizations, civil society, technical partners and donors working to safeguard priority services, support phased adaptation, protect health outcomes and preserve hard-won gains.
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Effective surveillance and monitoring of noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) and their risk factors are essential for informing evidence-based public health policies, addressing health inequities, and ensuring progress toward global and regional targets. By tracking trends in NCDs, their modifiable risk... factors such as tobacco use, unhealthy diets, physical inactivity, harmful use of alcohol, and air pollution, along with biological risk factors such as overweight and obesity, high blood pressure (hypertension), and elevated blood glucose (diabetes), policymakers can identify emerging threats, target vulnerable populations, allocating resources efficiently. Reliable data also enable countries to evaluate interventions, adjust policies, and strengthen health systems to reduce the burden of NCDs.
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The 2022 report reviews the global malaria diagnostics market and technological landscape to support Unitaid’s 2023–2027 strategy for quality malaria case management. The report highlights the stalled progress of malaria control efforts, the gaps in access to diagnostics and the public health im...plications of P. falciparum HRP2/3 gene deletions, which compromise the accuracy of the widely used HRP2-detecting rapid diagnostic tests (RDTs). The report analyses the malaria RDT market, noting supplier diversification, price trends and production shifts resulting from the pandemic. It also addresses the emerging point-of-care G6PD testing market, which is required to ensure the safe radical cure of P. vivax infections. It surveys technological innovation, including digital microscopy, hemozoin tests, nucleic acid detection and biosensors, while emphasising that RDTs and microscopy will remain the mainstay of case management in the near term. The report identifies market shortcomings, access barriers and opportunities to improve malaria case management and diagnostic coverage.
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This guidance synthesizes current evidence on dengue laboratory testing and diagnostics and provides practical recommendations for laboratories, clinicians, public health officials, and programme managers involved in dengue diagnosis, surveillance, and control, in the context of the global emergency.... It includes a diagnostic algorithm for suspected cases, outlining appropriate testing methods based on days post symptom onset.
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Civil-military collaboration can play a unique and powerful role in strengthening health emergency preparedness through its various capacities and capabilities such as logistical support, medical and public health expertise, clinical facilities and coordination.
Ready4Response is a multi-tiered core curriculum that aims to develop consistent learning standards across the emergency response workforces at national level. It equips participants with essential competencies needed to work within public health emergency response.
The document provides a standardized protocol for evaluating the Early Warning Alert and Response Network (EWARN), a surveillance system used during humanitarian emergencies when regular national health surveillance may be disrupted. The purpose of EWARN is to detect outbreaks of communicable diseas...es early and enable rapid public health response. The guidance explains how the system should be assessed in terms of its structure, implementation, effectiveness, and usefulness. It outlines the key steps of evaluation: preparation, system description, data collection, and post-evaluation reporting. The protocol highlights common challenges observed in previous EWARN implementations, such as delays in establishing the system, limited data quality, weak outbreak response, and lack of clear transition plans back to routine surveillance systems. It emphasizes the need to evaluate both weekly disease reporting and alert verification processes, and to review attributes such as simplicity, data quality, timeliness, sensitivity, and stability. The document also provides templates for interviews, data review forms, and laboratory assessment, as well as guidance on conducting remote evaluations when access is limited. The overall goal of the protocol is to ensure that EWARN functions effectively to detect and respond to outbreaks and that practical recommendations are developed to improve the system’s performance and sustainability in emergency settings.
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EWARS is a surveillance system developed by the World Health Organization to detect and respond quickly to disease outbreaks in emergency settings where normal health systems are disrupted. It allows health facilities to report priority diseases on a regular basis and generates alerts when unusual p...atterns or suspected outbreaks occur. The system is designed to be simple and fast to set up, even in remote areas, and supports rapid public health action to prevent the spread of disease during crises.
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What are the variants circulating at this time? How are variants classified as variants of interest or concern? What does this mean for the public? Dr Maria Van Kerkhove explains in Science in 5 this week.