Accessed November 2018 | This project aims to implement a Model Disability Survey in which survey questions will gather information both on the health state of an individual – impairments and limitations in capacity to function – as well as features of the environment that facilitate or create b...arriers to functioning.
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This National Action Plan addresses actions needed to be taken in order to combat antimicrobial resistance (AMR) in the country. It is obligatory to raise awareness of antimicrobial resistance and promote behavioral change through public communication
programmes that targets human, animal and plant... health. Inclusion of the use of antimicrobial agents and resistance in school curricula will further promote better understanding and awareness from an early age. Antimicrobial Resistance knowledge, surveillance and research will be strengthened through establishing a national surveillance system for antimicrobial resistance, establishing and building capacity for a national reference laboratory and designated laboratories for AMR surveillance, developing a national research agenda on AMR and establishing and supporting a coordinated mechanism that will ensure harmonized AMR guidelines, data management and sharing systems in human, animal and plant health settings.
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Background: Cervical cancer accounts for 23% of cancer incidence and 22% of cancer mortality among women in Burkina Faso. These proportions are more than 2 and 5 times higher than those of developed countries, respectively. Before 2010, cervical cancer prevention (CECAP) services in Burkina Faso wer...e limited to temporary screening campaigns.
Program Description: Between September 2010 and August 2014, program implementers collaborated with the Ministry of Health and professional associations to implement a CECAP program focused on coupling visual inspection with acetic acid (VIA) for screening with same-day cryotherapy treatment for eligible women in 14 facilities. Women with larger lesions or lesions suspect for cancer were referred for loop electrosurgical excision procedure (LEEP). The program trained providers, raised awareness through demand generation activities, and strengthened monitoring capacity.
Methods: Data on program activities, service provision, and programmatic lessons were analyzed. Three data collection tools, an individual client form, a client registry, and a monthly summary sheet, were used to track 3 key CECAP service indicators: number of women screened using VIA, proportion of women who screened VIA positive, and proportion of women screening VIA positive who received same-day cryotherapy.
Results: Over 4 years, the program screened 13,999 women for cervical cancer using VIA; 8.9% screened positive; and 65.9% received cryotherapy in a single visit. The proportion receiving cryotherapy on the same day started at a high of 82% to 93% when services were provided free of charge, but dropped to 51% when a user fee of $10 was applied to cover the cost of supplies. After reducing the fee to $4 in November 2012, the proportion increased again to 78%. Implementation challenges included difficulties tracking referred patients, stock-outs of key supplies, difficulties with machine maintenance, and prohibitive user fees. Providers were trained to independently monitor services, identify gaps, and take corrective actions.
Conclusions: Following dissemination of the results that demonstrated the acceptability and feasibility of the CECAP program, the Burkina Faso Ministry of Health included CECAP services in its minimum service delivery package in 2016. Essential components for such programs include provider training on VIA, cryotherapy, and LEEP; provider and patient demand generation; local equipment maintenance; consistent supply stocks; referral system for LEEP; non-prohibitive fees; and a monitoring data collection system.
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The Generic All-Hazards Risk Assessment and Planning Tool for Mass Gathering Events (“All-Hazards MG RA Tool”) aims to support Member States and mass gathering events organizers.
The tool is based on the principles of the World Health Organization’s Strategic Toolkit for Assessing Risk (STA...R) as well as lessons learned identified from the COVID-19 Risk Assessment Tool for Mass Gatherings. The purpose of the All-Hazards Mass Gatherings Risk Assessment tool is to identify hazards related to the event, assess and quantify the overall level of risk, identify and account for precautionary measures that may reduce the risk, making the event safer. The tool provides a systematic evidence-based approach to identifying and classifying priority risks; a description of the level of national preparedness and readiness to mitigate specific hazards; guidance on the implementation of a comprehensive and strategic risk assessment to inform preparedness and response plans ahead of the mass gathering; and an estimated assessment of the host country capacity to identify and respond to potential negative health impacts.
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The Multi-professional Patient Safety Curriculum Guide (2011) was developed to assist in the teaching of patient safety in universities and schools in the fields of dentistry, medicine, midwifery, nursing and pharmacy. It also supports the on-going training of all health care professionals.
The C...urriculum Guide is comprised of two parts. Part A is a teachers’ guide designed to introduce patient safety concepts to educators. It relates to building capacity for patient safety education, programme planning and design of the courses. Part B provides all-inclusive, ready-to-teach, topic-based patient safety courses that can be used as a whole, or on a per topic basis. There are 11 patient safety topics, each designed to feature a variety of ideas and methods for patient safety learning. Universities are encouraged to start with Part A which provides comprehensive advice on how to introduce and build patient safety courses.
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Given an increase in outbreaks caused by resistant microorganisms associated with medical tourism, the Pan American Health Organization / World Health Organization (PAHO/WHO) encourages Member States to strengthen their capacity to detect and manage infections caused by resis...tant microorganismsin patients who traveled outside of their country of residence to receive healthcare. Furthermore, PAHO/WHO stresses the importance to implement preventive measures to reduce healthcare-associated infections at all levels of the health system.
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Based on scientific evidence, expert consensus and country experiences, the WHO core components for infection prevention and control (IPC) are the foundation for establishing or strengthening effective programmes at the national and facility level.
These new guidelines on core components of infecti...on prevention and control (IPC) at the national and acute health care facility level will enhance the capacity of Member States to develop and implement effective technical and behaviour modifying interventions. They form a key part of WHO strategies to prevent current and future threats from infectious diseases such as Ebola, strengthen health service resilience, help combat antimicrobial resistance (AMR) and improve the overall quality of health care delivery. They are also intended to support countries in the development of their own national protocols for IPC and AMR action plans and to support health care facilities as they develop or strengthen their own approaches to IPC.
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Since the last situation report on the multi-country outbreak of cholera was published on 6 July 2023 (covering data reported until 15 of June), and as of 15 July 2023, one new outbreak of cholera was reported from India on 15 May 2023. In total, 25 countries have reported cases since the beginning ...of 2023. The WHO African Region remains the most affected region with 14 countries reporting cholera cases since the beginning of the year. The overall capacity to respond to the multiple and simultaneous outbreaks continues to be strained due to the global lack of resources, including shortages of the Oral Cholera Vaccine (OCV) and cholera supplies, as well as overstretched public health and medical personnel, who are dealing with multiple parallel disease outbreaks and other health emergencies. Based on the large number of outbreaks and their geographic expansion, as well as a lack of vaccines and other resources, WHO continues to assess the risk at global level as very high.
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The Pandemic Influenza Preparedness (PIP) Framework is a World Health Assembly resolution adopted unanimously by all Member States in 2011. It brings together Member States, industry, other stakeholders and WHO to implement a global approach to pandemic influenza preparedness and response. The Frame...work includes a benefit-sharing mechanism called the Partnership Contribution (PC). The PC is collected as an annual cash contribution from influenza vaccine, diagnostic, and pharmaceutical manufacturers that use the WHO Global Influenza Surveillance and Response System (GISRS). Funds are allocated for: (a) pandemic preparedness capacity building; (b) response activities during the time of an influenza pandemic; and (c) PIP Secretariat for the management and implementation of the Framework.
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Notable progress has also been made on other key health indicators such as reducing maternal, infant and child deaths and malnutrition, increasing immunization coverage, eliminating infectious diseases such as polio and reducing the incidence of malaria, tuberculosis and diarrhoeal diseases.
But ...despite such substantial progress, the country now faces new and emerging new challenges such as the rising burden of noncommunicable diseases, increased risks associated with disasters, environmental threats and health emergencies during disease outbreaks including the COVID-19 pandemic that is a serious public health threat to Bangladesh. To establish a resilience system for future potential pandemics, the national capacity for emergency preparedness and early response to health emergencies needs to be bolstered considerably.
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Ethiopia GATS was implemented by Ethiopia Public Health Institute (EPHI) in collaboration with the Ethiopian Food, Medicine, Health Care Administration and Control Authority (FMHACA), CSA, FMOH and the World Health Organization (WHO)country office. Technical assistance ...for the implementation of the survey was provided by the WHO, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and RTI International. Program support was provided by the CDC Foundation.Financial support for Ethiopia GATS was provided by the CDC Foundation with a grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.GATS enhances countries’ capacity to design, implement and evaluate tobacco control programs. It also assistscountries to fulfill their obligations under the WHO FCTC to generate comparable data within and across countries. In addition,it allows countries to implement the WHO MPOWER policy package. WHO MPOWERisa technical packagedevelopedtoassist countries in implementing selected demand reduction measures contained in the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control(FCTC)(5).The six MPOWER evidence-based measures contained in the FCTC;
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Sequencing SARS-CoV-2 in the Americas
The COVID-19 Genomic Surveillance Regional Network was created in 2020 not only to strengthen the sequencing capacity in the participating laboratories, but also for them to establish a routine SARS-CoV-2 genomic sequencing, as a strategy to increase the amoun...t of genetic sequence data available to the global community, which is critical to support the development of diagnostic protocols, the information for vaccine development and to better understand the evolution and molecular epidemiology of the SARS-CoV-2.
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28 May 2021
Contact tracing is a key component of a public health response to infectious disease outbreaks. The purpose of this guidance is to reinforce the place of community engagement and participation in the contact tracing process. The guidance and related products articulate best practice pri...nciples for community engagement and how they can be operationalized as part of any community-centred contact tracing strategy. The material provided can stand on its own or be used to complement other documents that support strategies, implementation plans or training and capacity building modules.
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In 2015, Member States and the global health community committed to reduce premature mortality from
noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) by one third by 2030 (SDG target 3.4). Despite growing efforts, the pace of change in
most countries, and the policies and regulations required to achieve this goal, ...are too slow, inadequate or insufficient.
Recognizing that public sector efforts alone are insufficient to address the prevention and control of NCDs, the Global
NCD Action Plan emphasizes the need for coordinated multisectoral and multistakeholder engagement, acknowledging
the role of nongovernmental organizations – including civil society groups, individuals with lived experience, academic
institutions and private sector entities. However, WHO notes that some Member States still have limited or no capacity
to establish or manage the implementation of engagement with private sector entities for the prevention and control of
noncommunicable diseases
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This update of the Guidelines for poison control, entitled Guidelines for establishing a poison centre, reflects the development of the role of poison centres in public health and the sound management of chemicals, described in section 1, and the opportunities provided by new technology. Assessments... carried out under the IHR show
continuing gaps in capacity for managing chemicals (2). In particular, many countries still lack access to poison
centre services (3). There is therefore demand for updated guidance.
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The following protocol has been designed to investigate the extent of infection, as determined by seropositivity in the general population, in any country in which COVID-19 virus infection has been reported. Each country may need to tailor some aspects of this protocol to align with public health, l...aboratory and clinical systems, according to capacity, availability of resources and cultural appropriateness. However, using a standardized protocol such as this one below, epidemiological exposure data and biological samples can be systematically collected and shared rapidly in a format that can be easily aggregated, tabulated and analyzed across many different settings globally for timely estimates of COVID-19 virus infection severity and attack rates, as well as to inform public health responses and policy decisions. This is particularly important in the context of a novel respiratory pathogen, such as COVID-19 virus
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The household transmission investigation is a case-ascertained prospective study of all identified household contacts of a laboratory confirmed 2019-nCoV infection (see 2.2 Study population). It is intended to provide rapid and early information on the clinical, epidemiological and virological chara...cteristics of 2019-nCoV.
There are three primary objectives of this household transmission study:
To better understand the extent of transmission within a household by estimating the secondary infection rate for household contacts at an individual level, and factors associated with any variation in the secondary infection risk.
To characterize secondary cases including the range of clinical presentation, risk factors for infection, and the extent and fraction of asymptomatic infections.
To characterize serologic response following confirmed 2019-nCoV infection (highly encouraged, but optional depending on laboratory capacity and resources)
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Since the launch of the 2012–2020 World Health Organization (WHO) road map for the control, elim-ination and eradication of neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) (1), considerable progress against NTDs has been made. Between 2010 and 2020, the number of people requiring interventions against NTDs glo...bally fell by 600 million, and 42 countries, areas and territories eliminated at least one NTD (2). In January 2021, a new NTD road map for 2021–2030 (2) was launched, setting future targets and mile-stones for 20 diseases and disease groups. The road map also sets cross-cutting targets, including for strengthened capacity of national health systems to deliver interventions through existing infrastructure.
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14 March 2022. Ukraine emergency response
WHO appreciates offers of contributions of supply support in solidarity with the affected population of the current conflict in Ukraine.
Please note that supply into and within Ukraine is seriously constrained by continuously shifting conflict zones, d...amage to infrastructure and potential shortages of power and fuel. The WHO priority is to supply critically needed items in a manner that is safe, secure, and responsive to the environment in which we are operating in. Access constraints require that logistics planning and capacity are paramount if supplies are to move smoothly to destinations where they are needed.
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