The Toolkit is a resource that may be used by businesses of all sizes in the different sectors. The guidelines provided in the Toolkit are intentionally general so they can easily be adapted by employers to their specific business culture, working environment and human resource procedures.
The Tool...kit will be particularly relevant to designated employers in terms of the Employment Equity Act 55 of 1998. Human resources personnel, DPO’s and all organisations pursuing greater employment opportunities
for persons with disabilities will find the Toolkit similarly useful.
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Compared with other health areas, the mental health impacts of climate change have received less research attention. The literature on climate change and mental health is growing rapidly but is characterised by several limitations and research gaps. In a field where the need for designing evidence-b...ased adaptation strategies is urgent, and research gaps are vast, implementing a broad, all-encompassing research agenda will require some strategic focus.
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What are the FP and CAC competencies?
Through the clear articulation of the family planning and comprehensive abortion care (FP and CAC) competencies for the primary health care workforce, the aim is to advance improvements in FP and CAC service delivery by aligning health worker education approach...es with population health needs and health system demands.
This document, which describes these competencies in detail, is intended to:
be a foundational tool to be adopted and adapted by educators and regulators for FP and CAC providers (students) with a pre-service training pathway of at least 12 months;
describe competencies that are relevant to current and future health practice;
enable widespread use of the competencies not only for curriculum development for pre-service education, but also for in-service education, regulation, qualifications, quality assurance, personal development, performance evaluation, recruitment, management and career progression;
focus on the core functions of FP and CAC providers within broader efforts towards achieving universal health coverage
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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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The objective of this concept note and the framework it outlines is the elimination of a group of CDs and the negative health effects they generate, which together create a tangible burden on affected individuals, their families and communities, and on health care systems throughout the Region. Thou...gh there is no unified consensus on the best measures to use for the public’s health and a nation’s epidemiologic situation, it is common for the disease burden to be measured by disease rates (incidence, prevalence, etc.), disease-specific death rates, comparative morbidity and mortality rates, geographic distribution, and disability-adjusted life years (DALYs). The current epidemiological situation, including data on disease rates or geographic distribution for the diseases in Table 1, is discussed below in Section 4. Hotez et al. (2008) were the first to review and compare the burden of DALYs in Latin America and the Caribbean—for NTDs, HIV/AIDS, malaria, and TB—as it existed about 10 years ago. Though the regional burden of TB, malaria, and neglected infectious diseases (NIDs) is somewhat less than it was 10 years ago, work (and schooling) continue to be lost to illness and premature death or disability, and the need for stepping up disease elimination efforts is evident in all communities living in vulnerable conditions....
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This document aims to assist countries to take the first step towards better considering gender and equity issues in their efforts to tackle antimicrobial resistance (AMR), to inform the implementation of strategies in national action plans and contribute to improved reach and effectiveness of AMR e...fforts in the longer term. It is part of a series of papers being developed y WHO, FAO and OIE to build a better global evidence base for implementing AMR national action plans. This version is illustrated by examples from the health sector predominantly but
will be updated with advice from the food and animal sectors in due course.
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Climate change is one of the most urgent challenges for people and ecosystems worldwide. The recently published sixth Assessment Report (AR6) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) stresses the occurrence of widespread adverse impacts of climate change. Increased frequency and inten...sity of extreme weather events, as well as slow-onset processes cause enormous losses and damages to human and natural systems. Marginalized groups and people in vulnerable situations are often disproportionally affected. While the impacts of climate change already become more tangible and threatening, action for addressing them remains insufficient. Adaptation to climate change is, thus, becoming a necessity for governments, companies, and private citizens.
To provide practical and scientifically sound guidance on how to conduct vulnerability assessments, GIZ published its Vulnerability Sourcebook in 2014. The Vulnerability Sourcebook was used in over twenty different GIZ partner countries and provides a step-by-step guidance for designing and implementing a vulnerability assessment. It is also one of the methodological foundations for the ISO 14091:2021 standard on vulnerability, impacts and risk assessment for climate change adaptation.
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Heart failure with a reduced ejection fraction (HFrEF) is a condition frequently encountered by healthcare professionals and, in order to achieve the best outcomes for patients, needs to be managed optimally. This guideline document is based on the European Society of Cardiology Guidelines for the t...reatment of acute and chronic heart failure published in 2016, and summarises what is considered the best current management of patients with the condition. It provides information on the definition, diagnosis and epidemiology of HFrEF in the African context. The best evidence-based treatments for HFrEF are discussed, including established therapies (beta-blockers, ACE-i/ARBs, mineralocorticoid receptor antagonists (MRAs), diuretics) that form the cornerstone of heart failure management as well as therapies that have only recently entered clinical use (angiotensin receptor-neprilysin inhibitor (ARNI), sodium/glucose cotransporter-2 (SGLT2) inhibitors). Guidance is offered in terms of more invasive therapies (revascularisation, implantable cardioverter defibrillators (ICDs) and cardiac resynchronisation therapy (CRT) by implantation of a biventricular pacemaker with (CRT-D) or without (CRT-P) an ICD, left ventricular assist device (LVAD) use and heart transplantation) in order to ensure efficient use of these expensive treatment modalities in a resourcelimited environment. Furthermore, additional therapies (digoxin, hydralazine and nitrates, ivabradine, iron supplementation) are discussed and advice is provided on general preventive strategies (vaccinations). Sections to discuss conditions that are particularly prevalent in sub-Saharan Africa (HIV-associated cardiomyopathy (CMO), peripartum CMO, rheumatic heart disease, atrial fibrillation) have been added to further improve clinical care for these commonly encountered disease processes.
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To maintain a structured and well-organized implementation plan it is important to have a lead agency or sector. The ministry of health or a similar authority in government will be critical in facilitating development and implementation of the multisectoral action plan.
Improving the quality of hospital antibiotic use is a major goal of WHO’s global action plan to combat antimicrobial resistance. The WHO Essential Medicines List Access, Watch, and Reserve (AWaRe) classification could facilitate simple stewardship interventions that are widely applicable globally.... We aimed to present data on patterns of paediatric AWaRe antibiotic use that could be used for local and national stewardship interventions.
www.thelancet.com/lancetgh Vol 7 July 2019
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A formulary of dermatological preparations and background information on therapeutic choices, production and dispensing. 2nd edition
Unchecked inequality and failure to protect the rights of poorest women could undermine peace and world’s development goals, new UNFPA report warns:
- Only about half of the world’s women hold paid jobs
- Globally, women earn 77 per cent of what men get
- Three in five women worldwide lack m...aternity leave, many pay "motherhood penalty"
The report is also available in French: https://www.unfpa.org/sites/default/files/sowp/downloads/UNFPA_PUB_2017_FR_swop_Etat_de_la_population_mondiale.pdf; in Spanish: https://www.unfpa.org/sites/default/files/sowp/downloads/UNFPA_PUB_2017_ES_SWOP_Estado_de_la_Poblacion_Mundial.pdf; in Russian: https://www.unfpa.org/sites/default/files/sowp/downloads/UNFPA_PUB_2017_RU_SWOP_NARODONASELENIE_MIRA_V_2017_GODU.pdf and in Arabic: https://www.unfpa.org/sites/default/files/sowp/downloads/UNFPA_PUB_2017_AR_SWOP_Hl_skn_llm_.pdf
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These guidelines provide recommendations for the non-pharmacological aspects of infection prevention and control for acute respiratory diseases (ARD) in health care. Administrative and infection controls, including early detection, isolation and reporting, and establishment of infection control infr...astructure, are key components for containment and mitigation of the impact of pathogens that may constitute a major public health threat. In these guidelines, the options of using natural ventilation and/or exhaust fan assisted ventilation in health-care facilities (HCF) are considered.
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Draft Working Discussion Paper
Guidelines for national programmes and other stakeholders, for annexes see http://www.who.int/tb/publications/2012/tb_hiv_policy_9789241503006/en/
ECDC Technical Report
In line with ECDC’s recommendations provided in the ’Risk Assessment of HTLV-1/2 transmission by tissue/cell transplantation’ dated 14 March 2012, this Directive replaces the term ‘incidence’ with ‘prevalence’ in the description of endemic areas of HTLV-1/2 i...nfection. According to the new requirements ‘HTLV-1 antibody testing must be performed for donors living in, or originating from high-prevalence areas or with sexual partners originating from those areas or where the donor’s parents originate from those areas’ and this applies to both donors of non-reproductive tissues and cells and reproductive cells.
ECDC contracted experts from the Institut Pasteur in Paris to systematically review the published evidence on the distribution of HTLV-1 infection prevalence throughout the world and to identify high-prevalence countries and areas.
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Security Risk Management and Religion: Faith and secularism in humanitarian assistance examines the impact that religion has on security risk management for humanitarian agencies, and considers whether a better understanding of religion can improve the security of organisations and individuals in th...e field.
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This handbook aims to help labour inspectors deal with the issue of HIV/AIDS.
It establishes the links between the key principles and core responsibilities of labour inspectorates and the management of HIV/ AIDS at the workplace.
It includes training activities and practical tools to help inspecto...rs integrate HIV/AIDS in their work.
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This document has been developed to provide training and guidance on how to integrate a human rights approach in mental health and related areas, based on international human rights instruments, in particular the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD).