The framework responds to the demand from Member States and partners for guidance on how the health sector and its operational basis in health systems can systematically and effectively address the challenges increasingly presented by climate variability and change. This framework has been designed ...in light of the increasing evidence of climate change and its associated health risks (1); global, regional and national policy mandates to protect population health (2); and a rapidly emerging body of practical experience in building health resilience to climate change (3).
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Vaccines are powerful weapons in the fight against pandemic viruses as shown by responses to both the 2009 H1N1 influenza and the COVID-19 pandemics. However, planning for accessing, allocating and deploying vaccines in a pandemic situation is a complex endeavour, beset with multiple challenges at a...ll levels – local, regional and global. The World Health Organization (WHO) and its partners have prepared this revised guidance document to assist countries update their national deployment and vaccination plans (NDVPs) by leveraging global learnings from past pandemic responses, including the recent COVID-19 vaccination effort. The development and testing of a NDVP would not only advance pandemic preparedness efforts but would also have benefits in terms of increasing national capabilities to manage other health emergencies which require emergency vaccination campaigns.
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The active participation and engagement of health and care workers (HCWs) in health emergency preparedness, readiness and response is crucial to support risk communication, community engagement and infodemic management (RCCE-IM) interventions during emergencies. HCWs hold unique position...s in society – repeatedly being identified among the main influencers of people’s behaviours: they are one of the most trusted sources of health information and advice in communities and role models for the acceptance and uptake of protective measures during health emergencies. On the frontline, HCWs have valuable insights and knowledge that can be harnessed to support health emergencies across the entire emergency cycle. Between October and December 2023, the WHO Regional Office for Europe interviewed key informants on strategies and experiences to meaningfully engage HCWs during emergencies
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Global asymmetries influence policies for recovery in Latin America and the Caribbean. Nearly 30 years after the Earth Summit and the global adoption of an international development agenda, in practical terms the environmental pillar of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development has not been taken ...into consideration in recovery policies in the region. This has created major problems in terms of the medium- and long-term direction of regional economies.
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This report summarizes the latest scientific knowledge on the links between exposure to air pollution and adverse health effects in children. It is intended to inform and motivate individual and collective action by health care professionals to prevent damage to children’s health from exposure to ...air pollution.
Air pollution is a major environmental health threat. Exposure to fine particles in both the ambient environment and in the household causes about seven million premature deaths each year. Ambient air pollution alone imposes enormous costs on the global economy, amounting to more than US$ 5 trillion in total welfare losses in 2013.
This public health crisis is receiving more attention, but one critical aspect is often overlooked: how air pollution affects children in uniquely damaging ways. Recent data released by the World Health Organization (WHO) show that air pollution has a vast and terrible impact on child health and survival. Globally, 93% of all children live in environments with air pollution levels above the WHO guidelines (see the full report, Air pollution and child health: prescribing clean air. More than one in every four deaths of children under 5 years of age is directly or indirectly related to environmental risks. Both ambient air pollution and household air pollution contribute to respiratory tract infections that resulted in 543 000 deaths in children under the age of 5 years in 2016.
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Mental health problems are common and cause great suffering to individuals and communities around the world. They have a significant impact not only on the physical and mental health of those affected but also on their families and the communities they live in. At the same time, all communities have... their own traditional mechanisms for support and contain a range wide of resources that can be helpful in preventing mental health conditions from developing, promoting positive mental health and supporting the recovery of people that are struggling with a mental health condition.
In the wider context, people living with a mental health condition are often excluded from their communities and experience various violations to their basic human rights (discrimination, violence, exclusion from employment opportunities). The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that the mean prevalence of global mental health disorders is 10.8% while the prevalence in emergency settings is 22.1% in any conflict-affected population.
During emergencies and crisis, the stigma, exclusion and discrimination towards people living with mental health conditions is often higher, which can cause isolation and protection issues. Communities can play a crucial role in promoting mental health as well as enhancing primary care and access. Their role is to help reduce mental health inequalities by providing community resources that connect people to community-based resources and by providing mental health education. This also helps to reduce the massive mental health treatment gap.
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What at first glance appears to be simple causality – climate change leading to more and more migration – has triggered intense academic debate over the past ten years because the circumstances are complex. There is need for a thorough analysis in the ground between denying the problem and asser...ting immediate causality. In international relations, migration induced by climate change and environmental degradation is increasingly recognized as a problem, whether in the framework of international climate policy, international migration policy, development cooperation, or international crisis management. But considering the dimension of these major challenges, only small steps have been taken so far. The scope of the problem continues to be underestimated. Climate change is jeopardizing the livelihoods of more and more people. It is a risk multiplier. Although understanding of the connection between climate change and migration has increased, many questions have yet to be answered. We need more knowledge to better support the people affected.
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Humanitarian emergencies, regardless of type and cause, have a number of common risk factors for communicable diseases inextricably linked to excess risk of morbidity and mortality which can come from vaccine–preventable diseases (VPDs). The reduction of VPDs is a significant aim of public-health ...interventions during crises.
The WHO Strategic Advisory Group of Experts (SAGE) on Immunization carried out a comprehensive review of evidence on vaccination decision-making processes and considerations in humanitarian emergencies.
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En esta nueva edición de la guía Evaluación de daños y análisis de necesidades de salud en situaciones de desastre (EDAN) se hace énfasis en la organización del sector salud, desde la conformación del comité operativo de emergencia hasta la sala de situación de salud, estructura que debe r...eproducirse en el nivel nacional, regional y local. Se analizan las características de la EDAN y se presentan modelos de formatos para la recolección y análisis de la información de salud. El propósito es que la toma de decisiones se fundamente en información técnica de calidad, que permita diagnosticar, priorizar, planificarla intervención y solicitar recursos para la respuesta a emergencias de forma eficaz.
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The development of this draft Proposed programme budget 2022–2023 comes at a unique moment for WHO. The world is in the grip of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic and faces health, social and economic consequences on an unprecedented scale. Although it is not known when the COVID-19 pande...mic will end, recent encouraging vaccine results, in addition to the examples of countries that have achieved good results through public health measures, hold out the prospect of better days ahead. The full impact of the pandemic cannot yet be determined. But whatever its implications, the Secretariat will rise to the challenge and is ready to adapt so that it is fully equipped to support Member States for any eventuality in the future – to make sure that the world will never again have to face this kind of crisis.
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Globally each year, millions of people suffer illness or lose their lives because the vaccines, medicines and diagnostic tests that they need are either unavailable or unaffordable – and this lack of access to medicine is acute in low- and middle-in-
come countries (LMICs). While the COVID-19 pan...demic laid this inequity bare, it also saw the pharmaceutical industry develop and bring new vaccines and treat- ments to market at unprecedented speed. As the world emerges from the worst
of this crisis, pharmaceutical companies are now at an important juncture, where lessons learned from the pandemic can prove pivotal in finding solutions to bridge long-standing gaps in access to medicine in LMICs.
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Scientists have known for more than half a century that patients could develop resistance to the drugs used to treat them. Alexander Fleming, who is credited with creating the first antibiotic, penicillin, in 1928, cautioned of the impending crisis while accepting his Nobel prize in 1945: “There ...is the danger that the ignorant man may easily underdose himself and by exposing his microbes to non-lethal quantities of the drug make them resistant.” Since then antibiotics have proved one of the most effective interventions in human medicine. Sadly, the overuse and misuse of this precious resource have brought us to a global crisis of antimicrobial resistance (AMR). To address this crisis nearly seven decades after Fleming’s lecture the first UN general assembly meeting on drug resistance bacteria was convened in September 2017.
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To complement the Global Strategy progress reporting, this report provides a detailed look at country leadership and action toward the Every Newborn National Milestones by 2020. Countries have taken the initiative to show the way forward and have demonstrated significant progress. As part of monitor...ing this progress, countries have adopted the Every Newborn Tracking Tool. This report presents a compilation of the data collated by the Every Newborn Tracking Tool in 2016, when 51 countries adopted the tool; it also spotlights examples of specific country activity for each National Milestone. Finally, Global Milestones for 2020 were part of the Every Newborn Action Plan to guide global and regional work in support of country efforts and this report highlights relevant progress towards those Global Milestones.
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DHS Working Papers No. 69
This paper uses data from the three Indian National Family Health Surveys (1992-93, 1998-99, 2005-06) to examine how the relationship between household wealth and child mortality evolved during a time of significant economic change in India. The main predictor is a new... measure of household wealth that captures changes in wealth over time. Outcomes include neonatal mortality, postneonatal mortality, child mortality, and under-five mortality. Multivariate analysis is conducted at the national, urban, rural, and regional levels.
Results indicate that the overall relationship between household wealth and mortality weakened over time, as evidenced by the coefficients for under-five mortality at the national level.
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The 2021 Global monitoring report on financial protection in health shows that before the COVID-19 pandemic, the world was off-track to reduce financial hardship due to health expenditures because trends in catastrophic health spending were going in the wrong direction and the number of people incur...ring impoverishing health spending remained unacceptably high (Chapter 1). Chapter 2 summarizes emerging evidence on the consequence of the pandemic and the related macroeconomic and fiscal crisis that points to the likely worsening of financial protection for households, particularly as a result of declining income and consumption, along with rising poverty and inequality
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Forests, trees and green spaces, hereinafter ‘forests and trees’ for short, provide multiple goods and services that contribute to human health. These include medicines, nutritious foods and other non-wood forest products (NWFPs). Globally, at least 3.5 billion people use NWFPs, including medici...nal plants, which are particularly important for vulnerable groups and Indigenous Peoples and local communities (IPLCs).
During periods of crises, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, demand for forest products typically increases amongst these groups. Forests and trees also contribute to better health by playing a role in climate change
mitigation and adaptation, contributing to regulating the carbon cycle, but also moderating the micro-climate, filtering pollutants from the air and protecting settlements against the effects of extreme events such as droughts and flash floods.
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La troisième génération de la Stratégie de Coopération de l’OMS avec les Pays (SCP) concrétise le programme majeur de réforme adopté par l’Assemblée mondiale de la Santé pour renforcer la capacité de l’OMS et faire en sorte que ses prestations répondent mieux aux besoins du pays. E...lle reflète le douzième programme général de travail de l’OMS au niveau du pays, vise à assurer une pertinence accrue de la coopération technique de l’OMS avec les États Membres. Elle met l’accent sur l’identification des priorités et des mesures d’efficience pour la mise en œuvre des réformes de l’OMS et de l’agenda de transformation régional. L’agenda de transformation vise à faire de l’organisation sanitaire régionale une institution clairvoyante, proactive, capable de répondre aux attentes, axée sur les résultats, transparente et responsable. Cette génération de SCP tient compte du rôle des différents partenaires, y compris les acteurs non étatiques, dans la fourniture d’un appui aux gouvernements et aux communautés.
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TNew data from the World Health Organization reveal that the COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted malaria services, leading to a marked increase in cases and deaths.
According to WHO’s latest World malaria report, there were an estimated 241 million malaria cases and 627 000 malaria deaths worldwide i...n 2020. This represents about 14 million more cases in 2020 compared to 2019, and 69 000 more deaths. Approximately two-thirds of these additional deaths (47 000) were linked to disruptions in the provision of malaria prevention, diagnosis and treatment during the pandemic.
As in past years, the report provides an up-to-date assessment of the burden of malaria at global, regional and country levels. It tracks investments in malaria programmes and research as well as progress across all intervention areas. This latest report draws on data from 87 countries and territories with ongoing malaria transmission.
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El 30 de enero de 2020, el Director General de la OMS declaró el brote de la enfermedad coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) como emergencia de salud pública de interés internacional (PHEIC por sus siglas en inglés) bajo al Reglamento Sanitario Internacional (RSI 2005), siguiendo el asesoramiento del Com...ité de Emergencia del RSI. El 4 de febrero de 2020, el Director General de la OMS informó al Secretario General de las Naciones Unidas y pidió que se activara la política de gestión de crisis de las Naciones Unidas para establecer un equipo de gestión de crisis (CMT por sus siglas en inglés) que coordinara la ampliación a todo el sistema de las Naciones Unidas para ayudar a los países a prepararse para COVID-19 y responder a esta. Una pandemia es la propagación mundial de una nueva enfermedad. Las pandemias son acontecimientos impredecibles pero recurrentes que pueden afectar considerablemente a la salud, las comunidades y las economías de todo el mundo. La planificación y la preparación son fundamentales para ayudar a mitigar el riesgo y el impacto de una pandemia, y para gestionar la respuesta y la recuperación.
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Each year, the WHO Global TB Report provides a comprehensive and up-to-date assessment of the TB epidemic, and of progress in prevention, diagnosis and treatment of the disease, at global, regional and country levels. This is done in the context of global TB commitments, strategies and targets.
The... 2021 edition of the report has been produced in a new and more web-centric format. This is designed to make the content available in smaller (more “bite-sized”) chunks that are easier to read, digest, navigate and use. There is a short and slim report PDF with 30 pages of main content plus six short annexes. This is accompanied by expanded and more detailed digital content on web pages. The total amount of content remains similar to that of previous years.
Available in English, French, Arabic and Chinese
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