6th edition. The HIV epidemic Namibia is gradually being brouhgt under countrol as demonstrated by results in the preliminary report of Namibia Population-Based HIV Impact Assessment (NAMPHIA), a cross-sectional household-based survey that was conducted in 2017. Currently, it is estimated that about... 204,207 Namibians are living with HIV. According to the NAMPHIA preliminary report, HIV prevalence among adults aged 15-64 is 12.6% and the annual HIV incidence is 0.36%. This report, together with HIV programmatic data has show that Namibia is one of the few African countries to meet the 2015 Joint United Nations Program on HIV and epidemic globally by 2030.
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A guide to promote health systems strengthening to achieve universal health coverage.
The document titled "Manual for Stratifying Malaria Risk and the Elimination of Foci" by PAHO provides guidance for countries in the Americas on how to systematically assess and classify malaria transmission risk at subnational levels. It outlines a standardized approach to stratification and the id...entification of active transmission foci, helping public health authorities prioritize interventions, allocate resources efficiently, and implement targeted strategies to accelerate progress toward malaria elimination.
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Tax capacity—the policy, institutional, and technical capabilities to collect tax revenue—is part of a deeper process of state building that is essential for achieving the sustainable development goals. This Staff Discussion Note shows that developing countries have made some progress in revenue... mobilization during the past decades, but that much more is needed. It finds that a staggering 9 percentage-point increase in the tax-to-GDP ratio is feasible through a combination of tax system reform and institutional capacity building. Achieving this calls for a holistic and institution-based approach that focuses on improving policy, administration, and legal implementation of core taxes. The note offers practical lessons and guidance, based on IMF capacity-building experience in this area.
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The role of evidence in the journey towards universal health coverage is paramount. Financial risk protection monitoring, the major focus of this report, informs where the WHO African Region stands in reducing the financial hardship people face due to health expenses. This report details the status ...of financial risk protection and related trends, the drivers of out-of-pocket (OOP) payments and the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on financial risk protection. As such, it provides evidence coutries can draw on to develop health financing systems and reforms that mitigate financial barriers to accessing health services. Through analysis of country data, cross-country learning and drawing on the published literature, this report proposes recommendations that countries may adapt to their contexts.
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Reflecting its commitment to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), Namibia volunteered to undertake a second national review of the SDGs in 2021. The focus is on three SDG dimensions, namely, Economic, Social, and Environmental. These three dimensions are comprehensively integrated in ...the fifth National Development Plan (NDP5) pillars: Economic Progression, Social Transformation, Environmental Sustainability, and Good Governance.
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Zambia is facing a severe economic crisis marked by high inflation, increasing poverty and a heavy debt burden that is straining both its fiscal stability and progress in health outcomes. By 2020, the country's external debt reached United States dollars (USD) 12.7 billion, representing 108% of the ...country's gross domestic product (GDP). In 2020, Zambia sought assistance through the G20 Common Framework and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) Extended Credit Facility (ECF), securing a USD 1.7 billion loan over 5 years. IMF loans, however, come with austerity measures that prioritise fiscal discipline but could potentially exacerbate social inequalities. These measures, which include increasing consumer taxes on goods and services (value added taxes - VATs), electricity tariffs and fuel prices, disproportionately impact vulnerable populations, raising concerns about their long-term effects on essential services, especially accessible and good quality healthcare services.
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This comprehensive HPFM report thoroughly explores Kenya’s health financing landscape. It provides an in-depth analysis of the current state of affairs and sheds light on required strategic changes in health financing. The report points out the need to improve public financial management within th...e health sector, for more efficient financial systems. It focuses on better resourceraising and utilization mechanisms. The matrix highlights the need for consolidation of fragmented health financing arrangements, for a more efficient health system. It also emphasizes the need for enhancing strategic purchasing of health services, to improve the overall efficiency and quality of care. Additionally, the report stresses the critical
role of leveraging data and information systems for more evidence-based informed decision-making. These recommendations are crucial for advancing Kenya’s health financing system and moving closer to the UHC goal.
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This Guide is part of WHO’s overall programme of work on Political Economy of Health Financing Reform: Analysis and Strategy to Support UHC. The impetus for this work came from demands for more concrete evidence, recognition and integration of political economy issues within
health financing, and... overall system, reform design and implementation processes. This Guide is complementary to WHO’s Health Financing Progress Matrix assessment, as well as Health Financing Strategy development guidance. In this way, it promotes an embedded political
economy analysis approach that can be used in conjunction with other health financing assessments and guidance. The political economy framework can also be extended and easily adapted to broader health policy reforms.
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All malaria-endemic countries in the Region of the Americas have taken on the challenge to eliminate the disease and to put in place measures to orient their health programs and strategies in that direction. This manual explains how to implement measures to achieve malaria elimination and prevent it...s reestablishment by increasing the intensity and quality of interventions, reorienting initiatives, reducing delays that favor transmission, and ensuring adequate monitoring to adjust interventions.
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The guidelines are primarily intended for health-care professionals working in first- or second-level health-care facilities, including emergency, inpatient and outpatient services. They are also directed at policy-makers, health-care planners and programme managers, academic institutions, non-gover...nmental and civil society organizations to inform capacity-building, teaching and research agendas.
Web annex A provides the quantitative evidence reports, Web annex B summarizes the qualitative and economic evidence and Web annex C presents the Evidence-to-Decision frameworks.
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In 2008 the Ministry of Health and Social Services (MOHSS) commissioned a national health and social service system review which found that although some progress has been made in primary health care, provision of health services did not go beyond the health facilities, irrespective of the fast dist...ances between the Health facilities and community. The review then recommended that health services should be extended in a structured manner to communities through the establishment of paid health workers.
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Trop. Med. Infect. Dis. 2022, 7, 152. https://doi.org/10.3390/tropicalmed7080152
Relapsing malaria caused by Plasmodium vivax parasites poses a significant challenge to global malaria elimination efforts. About one third of the population remains at risk of contracting P. vivax malaria, and 85% of P. vivax infections stem from reactivated latent parasites, leading to chronic ana...emia and increased morbidity and mortality. In addition to diagnostic tools that can detect the acute, blood-stage of P. vivax, new tools are needed to detect the dormant infections before they reactivate and contribute to morbidity and onwards transmission
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The WHO susceptibility test kit has been extensively used for monitoring of insecticide resistance in disease vectors for many years. Over the years, users have reported issues with these kits and potential improvements to WHO in an ad-hoc manner. To systematically determine whether the reported iss...ues were widespread and to collate potential improvements to the kit, a survey of users was put online from 30 June to 15 October 2023. The results from this survey are reported in this report.
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Reprogramming examples for GC7. This document supports the introduction of climate change-related interventions
into programs to reduce transmission of malaria and protect vulnerable populations.
Offering additional pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) choices has the potential to increase uptake and effective use of PrEP, and of HIV prevention overall, as it allows people to choose a method that they prefer.
In this guideline, WHO recommends an offering long-acting injectable lenacapavir (LEN...) as an additional HIV prevention choice, as part of combination HIV prevention approaches. LEN, administered twice a year as PrEP, has been shown to be highly effective at reducing the risk of HIV acquisition. In this guideline, WHO also recommends using HIV rapid diagnostic tests (RDTs) for individuals initiating or continuing long-acting injectable PrEP, such as LEN and long acting injectable cabotegravir (CAB-LA). Flexible HIV testing approaches are essential for ensuring that testing does not become a barrier to accessing or continuing PrEP, including long-acting injectable options.
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Guidelines on lenacapavir for HIV prevention and testing strategies for long-acting injectable pre-exposure prophylaxis. Web Annex B
These guidelines promote the delivery of people-centred health services for STIs by providing evidence-based recommendations related to decentralization, integration, task sharing and digital health. These recommendations complement existing WHO guidelines for STI testing, treatment and management, ...and other service delivery interventions, such as self-care interventions. All the recommendations will be incorporated into the forthcoming WHO consolidated guidelines on STI prevention and care.
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