Census Report Volume 4-A
This thematic report presents findings on fertility and nuptiality in Myanmar. The analysis hows that the total fertility rate is 2.5 children per woman at the Union level, 1.9 children per woman for urban areas, and 2.8 children per woman for rural areas. Total fertili...ty for States and Regions varies from a high of 5.0 children per woman for Chin State to a low of 1.8 children per woman for Yangon Region. Total fertility appears to have declined at a rate of at least one child per woman per decade between 1970 and 2000. This relatively rapid decline apparently ceased sometime during the 1990s or 2000s. Estimates from the 2001 and 2007 surveys suggest that the level of fertility may have fluctuated between 2000 and 2014, but with no overall trend up or down. The marital status data shows an exceptionally high proportion of women remaining never married at age 50.
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After five consecutive below-average rains, the humanitarian crisis in the Horn of Africa is expanding and deepening.
Combined with insecurity and macroeconomic volatility, the impact of the drought on food and nutrition security has been devastating. Across Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia, an estima...ted 22 million people are now acutely food insecure because of the drought. The malnutrition situation is also critical. Some 5.1 million children across drought-affected areas of the three countries are acutely malnourished in 2023, with dire implications for their health, growth and survival. Concerningly, the upcoming March-May 2023 rains are also forecast to be below-average. Should these rains fail, and humanitarian assistance not be delivered at scale, food insecurity will continue to deteriorate.
Regardless of how the 2023 rains perform, extremely high humanitarian needs will persist through 2023 while a full recovery from a drought of this magnitude will take years. To address the devastating drought-induced hunger and malnutrition across the region, WFP is pursuing an integrated dual track approach; meeting immediate life-saving food and nutritional needs while simultaneously building resilience to extreme climate variability.
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Since the release of the first volume in May 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic has continued to rage around the world. By mid-March, 2021, countries around the globe had reported over 123 million cases—a nearly five-fold increase since this report’s previous volume—and over 2.7 million deaths attrib...uted to the disease. And while new case loads are currently on the rise again, the global health community has already administered almost 400 million doses of vaccines, at last offering some signs of hope and progress.
Economic impacts threaten to undo decades of recent progress in poverty reduction, child nutrition and gender equality, and exacerbate efforts to support refugees, migrants, and other vulnerable communities. National and local governments—together with international and private-sector partners—must deploy vaccines as efficiently, safely and equitably as possible while still monitoring for new outbreaks and continuing policies to protect those who do not yet have immunity.
More than ever, the world needs reliable and trustworthy data and statistics to inform these important decisions. The United Nations and all member organizations of the Committee for the Coordination of Statistical Activities (CCSA) collect and make available a wealth of information for assessing the multifaceted impacts of the pandemic. This report updates some of the global and regional trends presented in Volume I and offers a snapshot of how COVID-19 continues to affect the world today across multiple domains.
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Large-Scale UN Response Needed to Address Health and Food Crises
This report is based on interviews with more than 150 health care professionals, Venezuelans seeking or in need of medical care who recently arrived in Colombia and Brazil, representatives from international and nongovernmental humani...tarian organizations. In addition, researchers analyzed data on the situation inside Venezuela from official sources, hospitals, international and national organizations, and civil society organizations.
We found a health system in utter collapse with increased levels of maternal and infant mortality; the spread of vaccine-preventable diseases, such as measles and diphtheria; and increases in numbers of infectious diseases such as malaria and tuberculosis (TB). Although the government stopped publishing official data on nutrition in 2007, research by Venezuelan organizations and universities documents high levels of food insecurity and child malnutrition, and available data shows high hospital admissions of malnourished children.
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Hepatitis B (HBV) infection is a major public health problem and cause of chronic liver disease.
The 2024 HBV guidelines provide updated evidence-informed recommendations on key priority topics. These include expanded and simplified treatment criteria for adults but now also for adolescents; expa...nded eligibility for antiviral prophylaxis for pregnant women to prevent mother-to-child transmission of HBV; improving HBV diagnostics through use of point-of-care HBV DNA viral load and reflex approaches to HBV DNA testing; who to test and how to test for HDV infection; and approaches to promote delivery of high-quality HBV services, including strategies to promote adherence to long-term antiviral therapy and retention in care.
The 2024 guidelines include 11 updated chapters with new recommendations and also update existing chapters without new recommendations, such as those on treatment monitoring and surveillance for liver cancer.
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mhGAP is based on evidence-based technical guidelines (4) and provides a set of tools and
training packages to extend service provision. The mhGAP Intervention Guide (mhGAP-IG)
for MNS disorders in non-specialized health settings (8) is a clinical decision-making tool
for assessing and managing p...riority MNS conditions (depression, psychoses, epilepsy, child
and adolescent mental and behavioural disorders, dementia, disorders due to substance
use, self-harm and suicide).
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Food and nutrition security in the Democratic Republic of the Congo is subject to the relentless impact of conflict, epidemics and climate events that have persisted in the country for decades, further compounded by the global COVID-19 pandemic. Lack of infrastructure and investment in agriculture, ...health and human capital development combine to impede progress towards the achievement of Sustainable Development Goals 2 and 17. While there are several legal instruments and policies that promote food and nutrition security, poor coordination, weak national capacity and exponential population growth present serious obstacles to the achievement of zero hunger. Political instability and siloed sectoral responses to humanitarian and development needs have also affected results to date.
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Immunization is one of the most cost-effective public health interventions to date, saving an estimated 2 to 3 million lives each year. As a direct result of immunization, the world is closer than ever to eradicating polio, and deaths from measles – a major child killer – have declined by 73 per... cent worldwide between 2000 and 2018, saving an estimated 23.2 million children’s lives. The emergence of COVID-19, however, threatens to reverse this progress by severely limiting access to life-saving vaccines.
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A discussion paper outlining the first steps in developing a nutrient profile model to drive changes to product composition and labelling and promotion practices in the WHO European Region
The aims of the guidance are to protect breastfeeding, prevent obesity and chronic diseases, promote a healthy... diet, and ensure caregivers receive clear and accurate information on infant and young child feeding.
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Census Report Volume 4-E
As no census has been undertaken in over 30 years, many aspects of the demographic situation in the country were unknown. For instance, before the Census it was thought that the country had a population of about 60 million, but the 2014 Census showed that the population... (including an estimate for under-enumeration) was 51,486,253 persons, around 8.5 million less than the previous estimate.
In the 1983 census, 35,307,913 persons were recorded. Therefore between 1983 and 2014, the population increased by 46 per cent. With an average annual population growth rate of 0.89 per cent between 2003 and 2014, Myanmar is one of the slowest growing countries in Southeast Asia.
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Nearly half the population of Sierra Leone is under the age of 18 years and the impact of the Ebola crisis on their lives now and on their future opportunities has been far-reaching: no school; loss of family members and friends to the virus; and changing roles and responsibilities in the home and t...he community.
While the priority now remains meeting the goal of zero cases, the Government of Sierra Leone (GoSL) is also developing a comprehensive strategy aimed at supporting communities to recover from this crisis, to put the country back on track to meet development targets. The Ebola Recovery Strategy – currently being finalised by the GoSL – represents a potentially transformative framework to support the immediate recovery of children from the crisis and to ensure their place in the future development of Sierra Leone.
To date, there has not been a formal process for children to outline their own priorities for recovery to decision-makers. In mid-March 2015, child-centred agencies conducted a Children’s Ebola Recovery Assessment (CERA) in nine districts across Sierra Leone to create a mechanism for more than 1,100 boys and girls, to discuss issues of concern; assess the impact of the crisis on their roles, responsibilities and future opportunities; and to formulate their recommendations for recovery.
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This report provides an update on the level of poverty based on 2013/14 Integrated Household Living Conditions Survey (EICV4) focusing on poverty as measured in consumption terms. The report also highlights other trend dimensions of living conditions captured in other surveys that complement and pro...vide a holistic understanding of poverty and living conditions.
Rwanda’s economy has been growing steadily at about 8% since 2001 with GDP per capita more than tripling from US$ 211 in 2001 to US$ 718 in 2014. Food crop production growth was more than twice that of population growth between 2007 and 2014.
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Children continue to be exposed to powerful food marketing, which predominantly promotes foods high in saturated fatty acids, trans-fatty acids, free sugars and/or sodium and uses a wide variety of marketing strategies that are likely to appeal to children. Food marketing has a harmful impact on chi...ldren’s food choice and their dietary intake, affects their purchase requests to adults for marketed foods and influences the development of their norms about food consumption. Food marketing is also increasingly recognized as a children’s rights concern, given its negative impact on several of the rights enshrined in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.This WHO guideline provides Member States with recommendations and implementation considerations on policies to protect children from the harmful impact of food marketing, based on evidence specific to children and to the context of food marketing. Guidelines on other policies to improve the food environment are currently under development.
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This paper has been prepared to inform discussion at the conference “Beating the DRUM - Domestic Resource Use and Mobilization for accelerating progress towards SDG3,”. Many countries face critical shortfalls in domestic resource use and mobilization (DRUM) for health, threatening to push health... goals out of reach. DRUM failures weaken human capital formation, a vital input to economic growth. Countries need more and better health spending. The first step is to apply already-proven DRUM solutions, adapting them to new contexts. However, in many countries, even the best achievable DRUM performance will not be enough. New solutions are needed, including private-sector engagement and a next generation of DAH. The “Beating the DRUM” conference offers a platform for countries and partners to dialogue and build joint strategy. While each country’s situation is unique, shared lines of action are emerging.
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Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is a major public health challenge, which is recognized as high priority area by the Government of India. The increasing consumption of antibiotics is one of the key drivers of antimicrobial resistance seen in bugs of public health importance. Irrational prescription o...f broad-spectrum antibiotics, poor regulations around sale of antibiotics, self-medication, lack of education and awareness regarding responsible use of antibiotics have been identified as some of the key factors driving antimicrobial resistance in our country. The ‘National Health Policy’ (2017), addresses antimicrobial resistance as one of the key issues and prioritises development of guidelines regarding antibiotic use, limiting the over-the-counter use of antibiotics, restricting the use of antibiotics as growth promoters in livestock, and pharmaco-vigilance including prescription audit inclusive of antibiotic usage in the hospital and community.
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The primary audience of these recommendations includes healthcare providers who are responsible for developing national and local health protocols (particularly those related to hypertensive disorders of pregnancy), and those directly providing care to pregnant women and their newborns, including mi...dwives, nurses, general medical practitioners, obstetricians, obstetric physicians, managers of maternal and child health programmes, and relevant staff in ministries of health, in all settings.
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The rise of the discourse of 'trauma' as a major articulator of suffering within Western culture is a facet of the medicalization of life that has gathered pace in the last century. In recent years, Western mental health professionals have been increasingly involved in services addressing the plight... of war-affected populations - largely non-Western - in war zones or as refugees. Querying the extent to which their experiences can be reduced to a matter of mental health, this article addresses child refugees from war via three questions that go to the heart of the debate about how they are to be understood, the implications for their future maturation as individuals and citizens, and the role of psychological therapies aimed at catharsis of 'traumatic' memory.
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The guidelines address timing, number and place of postnatal contacts, and content of postnatal care for all mothers and babies during the six weeks after birth. The primary audience for these guidelines is health professionals who are responsible for providing postnatal care to women and newborns, ...primarily in areas where resources are limited. The guidelines are also expected to be used by policy-makers and managers of maternal and child health programmes, health facilities, and teaching institutions to set up and maintain maternity and newborn care services.
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The Second Economic Development and Poverty Reduction Strategy (EDPRS 2) is a launch into the home strait of our Vision 2020. We are faced with new challenges of ensuring greater self reliance and developing global competitiveness. Conscious of these challenges, we forge ahead knowing that working t...ogether, we always overcome.
The EDPRS 2 period is the time when our private sector is expected to take the driving seat in economic growth and poverty reduction. Through this strategy we will focus government efforts on transforming the economy, the private sector and alleviating constraints to growth of
investment. We will develop the appropriate skills and competencies to allow our people particularly the youth to become more productive and competitive to support our ambitions. We will also strengthen the platform for communities to engage decisively and to continue to develop home grown solutions that have been the bedrock of our success. These are fundamental principles as we work to improve the lives of all Rwandans in the face of an uncertain global economic environment.
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Census Report Volume 4-B
In the 2014 Census, early-age mortality was measured from the responses to two simple retrospective questions on childbearing addressed to ever-married women aged 15 and over. These questions referred to how many live children they had ever given birth to, and how many ...had died (or survived). Adult mortality was measured by using a question on the number of household members who had died during the 12 months preceding the Census.
According to the 2014 Census, infant and child mortality, which comprises under-five mortality, was high compared to other countries in the region. Previous estimates indicated a rapid decline during the 1960s and 1970s, with a substantial deceleration starting in the early 1980s. The decline has accelerated again during recent years.
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