OpenWHO is an interactive, web-based, knowledge-transfer platform offering free online courses to improve the response to health emergencies. In summary, OpenWHO currently offers courses covering the following topics and languages to support the response to COVID-19:
A general introduction to ...emerging respiratory viruses, including novel coronaviruses (available in Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian, Spanish, Hindi, Hungarian, Indian Sign Language, Indonesian, Macedonian, Persian, Portuguese, Serbian, Turkish and Vietnamese);
Clinical care SARI (available in English, French, Russian, Spanish, Indonesian, Portuguese and Vietnamese);
Health and safety briefing for respiratory diseases – ePROTECT (available in Chinese, English, French, Russian, Spanish, Indonesian and Portuguese);
IPC for COVID-19 (available in Chinese, English, French, Russian, Spanish, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Macedonian, Portuguese, Serbian and Turkish);
COVID-19 operational planning guidelines and partners platform to support country preparedness and response (available in Chinese, English, French, Russian and Portuguese);
SARI treatment facility design (available in Arabic, English and Portuguese);
An introduction to Go.Data (available in English and in additional languages); and
How to put on and remove PPE for COVID-19 (available in English and in additional languages).
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One of the main aims of the WHO Global Initiative for Childhood Cancer and the CureAll Americas framework is to strengthen centers of excellence and promote the training of the health workforce, especially pediatric oncology nurses, specialized in nursing care for children and adolescents with cance...r and their families. These health personnel provide compassionate, non traumatic, complex, continuous, ethical, conscious patient- and family-centered care in order to meet the physical, emotional, psychosocial, and cultural needs of the people involved. This publication is aimed at health administration teams, hospital management teams, and professional pediatric oncology nursing groups. Its objective is to identify, systematize, and consolidate available evidence on the scope of pediatric oncology nursing practice in Latin America and the Caribbean based on core competencies, in order to incorporate them into clinical practice, teaching, and research. The preparation process included a systematic review aimed at finding the best evidence on this subject. Patient- and family centered care and the conceptual model of competencies for teenagers and young adults with cancer, developed by the Teenage Cancer Trust with the support of the Royal College of Nursing, were the theoretical foundations supporting the systematization of recommendations.
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Full document available: https://www.icmr.nic.in/sites/default/files/guidelines/Gastric%20Cancer%20Final%20pdf%20for%20farrow_0.pdf | Prepared as an outcome of ICMR Subcommittee on Gastric Cancer | Coordinated by Division of Non Communicable Diseases | This Consensus Document on Management of Gastri...c Cancers summarizes the modalities of treatment including the site-specific anti-cancer therapies, supportive and palliative care and molecular markers and research questions. It also interweaves clinical, biochemical and epidemiological studies.
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The Committee discussed the implications for preparedness for smallpox-like events reflected by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. The Committee noted how quickly diagnostics and vaccines could be developed and deployed when resources and political will were abundant. This rapidity was also due to the f...act that the genetic sequence of the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) had been shared worldwide. It was noted that in one country SARS-CoV-2 had been reconstructed in a laboratory from the viral genome sequence before the first case of COVID-19 had been reported, highlighting the benefits of synthetic biology technologies for accelerated development of diagnostics as well as the oft-described potential risks. Lessons learned about clinical care during the COVID-19 pandemic were also discussed.
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While many of the countries hit by the COVID-19 in the first few months of the year are now beginning to relax lockdown measures as infection and death rates fall, in the regions most affected by HIV, TB and malaria, such as Africa, South Asia and Latin America, the pandemic continues to accelerate.... In lower resource settings, lockdowns are less effective and hard to sustain, and clinical care facilities are extremely limited. In such environments, the response to COVID-19 must focus on containing the pandemic’s spread as far as possible through testing, contact tracing and isolation, protecting the health workforce through training and the provision of personal protective equipment (PPE) and minimizing the knock-on impact on other diseases through shoring up fragile health systems, and adapting existing disease programs.
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Key messages for professionals working at hospitals and other healthcare settings: managers/administrators, infectious disease specialists, infection prevention and control professionals, epidemiologists, prescribers, junior doctors and students, pharmacists, nurses, clinical microbiologists, and pr...ofessionals in emergency departments, in intensive care units, and in long-term care facilities.
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The IMCI chart booklet is for use by doctors, nurses and other health professionals who see young infants and children less than five years old. It facilitates the use of the IMCI case management process in practice and describes a series of all the case management steps in a form of IMCI charts.
...These charts show the sequence of steps and provide information for performing them. The IMCI chart booklet should be used by all health professionals providing care to sick children to help them apply the IMCI case management guidelines. Health professionals should always use the chart booklet for easy reference.The chart booklet is divided into two main parts because clinical signs in sick young infants and older children are somewhat different and because case management procedures also differ between these age groups.
Sick child aged 2 months to 5 years
This part contains all the necessary clinical algorithms, information and instructions on how to provide care to sick children aged 2 months to 5 years.
Sick young infant aged up to 2 months
This part includes case management clinical algorithms for the care of a young infant aged up to 2 months.
Each of these parts contains IMCI charts corresponding to the main steps of the IMCI case management process.
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In the face of rapid increases in the number of hospitalizations due to COVID-19 in Latin America and the Caribbean, coupled with shortages of human and material resources, including medical equipment and gases, there is a need to redesign models of care in the Region to optimize available resources... and ensure that more patients receive the quantity and quality of oxygen they need. Oxygen is included in the World Health Organization’s list of essential medicines and is used to care for patients at all levels of integrated health services networks. The efficacy of oxygen use in the treatment of patients with respiratory conditions caused by COVID-19 has been demonstrated, but there is great opportunity to improve the effectiveness of its use if it is used in a rational, sustainable, and safe way. Bearing in mind that the efficacy of a health technology is measured by its benefit under actual conditions of use, practical actions can be taken to improve the use of medical oxygen and avoid oxygen shortages. A drug is considered to be used rationally when patients receive it according to their clinical needs, in doses appropriate to their individual needs, for an appropriate period, and at a low cost to them and their community. By providing instruction on the rational use of oxygen and promoting it, negative repercussions can be avoided, such as loss of efficacy as a result of activities related to oxygen storage, distribution, and administration. Rational use of oxygen also involves controlling waste due to leaks in storage and distribution systems, use of gas at incorrect pressures, use of incorrectly adjusted flowmeters, and disconnections, among other problems. Another aspect to consider is the provision of adequate technical support for all oxygen production systems, in terms of maintenance and calibration, availability of electrical energy, and specific knowledge about these systems. For these reasons, a set of guidelines has been put together for the development of an efficient management system to deal with situations of oxygen scarcity, both now and in the future.
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This tool is designed to help governments, partners, and other stakeholders to estimate potential requirements for essential supplies to respond to the current pandemic of COVID-19. Although it gives users with an estimation of the number of cases, this calculator is not an epidemiological calculato...r.
The focus of this tool is to forecast essential supplies: it includes estimation of personal protective equipment, diagnostic equipment, biomedical equipment for case management, essential drugs for supportive care, and consumable medical supplies.
The COVID-19 ESFT tool is intended to be complimentary to the Health Workforce tools (Adaptt and the Workforce Estimator). Both tools use the same base clinical attack rate ranges and classify health workforce using ILO ISCO codes, but their outputs are intentionally different due to their primary focus.
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Multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) and extensively drug-resistant
tuberculosis (XDR-TB) increasingly occur in resource-constrained settings.
In the context of a national response to MDR- and XDR-TB, health workers in
TB clinics (in district hospitals and some accredited health centres) wil...l need
to diagnose MDR-TB, initiate second-line anti-TB drugs, and monitor MDRTB
treatment.
Management of MDR-TB: a field guide was created to help health workers
carry out these tasks. It is a job aid that medical officers and TB nurses
are meant use frequently during the day for quick reference. This module
is closely related to other clinical guideline modules in the Integrated
Management of Adolescent and Adult Illness (IMAI) series. In particular, the
approach to chronic disease management is taken from General principles
of good chronic care in the IMAI series.
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Senegal has adopted the World Health Organization–Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS recommended 90-90-90 targets.5 The adoption of this strategy means that the country is expected, by 2020, to have 90% of its population living with HIV diagnosed, 90% of all those diagnosed receiving susta...ined HIV treatment, and 90% of those receiving antiretroviral therapy having suppressed viral load measures.5 To achieve these outcomes, having good clinical laboratory services for diagnosis and follow-up will be critical.6 More specifically, investments will be needed to improve laboratory infrastructure, and to facilitate the access and availability of routine viral load and early infant diagnosis (EID) measures through the implementation of point-of-care (POC) diagnostic platforms along with an efficient and sustainable quality assurance programme.
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User GuideThe toolkit is composed of three sections: Hospital and Health System Resources - includes a readiness assessment tool, the starting point in developing or enhancing a successful Antimicrobial Stewardship Program (ASP). The tool, a checklist developed by the CDC, should be shared with se...nior management, a senior leader for quality, purchasing directors, clinic managers, nurse managers, key physician leaders, risk managers, pharmacy leaders, infection preventionists and hospital epidemiologists, laboratory staff and information technology staff. For ease of use, it is divided into two sections, one for those just beginning a program, the other for those who wish to enhance an existing program. Clinician Resources - includes webinars, clinical evidence supporting appropriate use of antibiotics, implementation guides and related articles.Patient Resources - includes frequently asked questions, pamphlets and handouts on how patients can best engage in their care and resources on appropriate use of antibiotics.
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Social inequalities are perpetuating unhealthy living and working conditions and behaviours. These causes are commonly called ‘the social determinants of health’. Achieving greater equity in health will demand that the health sector assumes a greater leadership role in addressing social inequali...ties. This requires equipping health and care workers to better understand how the social determinants of health impact patients and communities. Education of the health workforce is thus a key step to advancing action. Integration of the social determinants of health into education and training will prepare the workforce to adjust clinical practice, define appropriate public health programmes and leverage cross-sector policies and mechanisms.
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mhGAP Intervention Guide Mental Health Gap Action Programme Version 2.0 for mental, neurological and substance use disorders in non-specialized health settings
The key updates include: content update in various sections based on new evidence; design changes for enhanced usability; a streamlined and... simplified clinical assessment that includes an algorithm for follow-up; inclusion of two new modules
- Essential Care and Practice that includes general guidelines and Iminterventions and implementation module to support the proposed interventions by necessary infrastructure and resources; and, revised modules for Psychoses, Child and Adolescent Mental and Behavioural Disorders and Disorders due to Substance Use
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Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is one of the top 10 global public health threats facing humanity. AMR threatens the effective prevention and treatment of an ever-increasing range of infections caused by bacteria, parasites, viruses and fungi.
It occurs when microorganisms develop resistance to me...dicines that are relied upon for treatment, making some conditions difficult or impossible to cure. As a result, infections persist in the body, increasing the risk of disease spread, severe illness and death.
The Antimicrobial Resistance channel offers learning resources to support implementation of the Global Action Plan on AMR (2015), by building health care worker competencies to help combat AMR in their daily clinical practice.
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Prevention, early diagnosis, and effective treatment are essential for the control and elimination of Neisseria gonorrhoeae as a public health problem. Currently, in Latin America and the Caribbean, treatment for gonorrhea infection is largely empiric and based on clinical diagnosis. In the Americas..., the high burden of new N. gonorrhoeae infections (estimated at 11 million new cases a year), the complexity of the disease epidemiology, and in many countries the limited resources, make it difficult to fully understand the burden of disease and the burden of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) in N. gonorrhoeae.
PAHO has developed this document to facilitate the navigation of available guidance and recommendations for N. gonorrhoeae AMR surveillance by public health and health care professionals, at the national and subnational levels, involved in designing, implementing, and/or strengthening AMR surveillance of N. gonorrhoeae and overall surveillance of sexually transmitted infections.
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As the global community aims to fulfill its commitments to the UN Sustainable Development Goals, and the achievement of universal health coverage, dozens of countries have committed to the expansion of community health workers (CHWs) as the front line of their healthcare systems [1, 2]. Robust resea...rch demonstrates CHWs improve access to care, reduce maternal, newborn, and child mortality, improve clinical outcomes for chronic diseases, and prevent disease outbreaks [3].
To support the operationalization of quality CHW program design and implementation, USAID, UNICEF, the Community Health Impact Coalition, and Initiatives Inc. have updated and adapted the Community Health Worker Assessment and Improvement Matrix (CHW AIM) Program Functionality Matrix [12]. This tool can be used to identify design and implementation gaps in both small- and national-scale CHW programs, and close gaps in policy and practice.
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Q7. SCOPING QUESTION: In adults with moderate-severe depressive disorder, what is the effectiveness and safety of antidepressant medication (ADM) in comparison with psychological treatment?
The WHO mhGAP programme’s existing guidelines recommend that either structured brief psychological treatm...ents (e.g., interpersonal psychotherapy or cognitive behavioural therapy, including behavioural activation) or antidepressant medication (e.g., SSRIsi and tricyclic antidepressants) be considered in adults with moderate-severe depression. Health care workers need to know whether these treatments have different effects, including side-effects, in treating depressive disorder in the short and long term, in order to improve clinical decision-making.
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Updated 22 august 2016. This document aims to provide interim guidance on the case definition of GBS and strategies to manage the syndrome, in the context of Zika virus and its potential association with GBS. This document is intended to inform the development of local clinical protocols and health ...policies related to the care of patients with GBS
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The American Heart Association, in conjunction with the National Institutes of Health, annually reports the most up-to-date statistics related to heart disease, stroke, and cardiovascular risk factors, including core health behaviors (smoking, physical activity, diet, and weight) and health factors ...(cholesterol, blood pressure, and glucose control) that contribute to cardiovascular health. The Statistical Update presents the latest data on a range of major clinical heart and circulatory disease conditions (including stroke, congenital heart disease, rhythm disorders, subclinical atherosclerosis, coronary heart disease, heart failure, valvular disease, venous disease, and peripheral artery disease) and the associated outcomes (including quality of care, procedures, and economic costs).
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