World Report 2021, Human Rights Watch’s 31st annual review of human rights practices and trends around the globe, reviews developments in more than 100 countries.
In his introductory essay, Executive Director Kenneth Roth calls on the incoming US administration to more deeply embed respect for ...human rights as an element of domestic and foreign policy to counter the “wild oscillations in human rights policy” that in recent decades have come with each new resident of the White House. Roth emphasizes that even as the Trump administration mostly abandoned the protection of human rights, joined by China, Russia and others, other governments—typically working in coalition and some new to the cause—stepped forward to champion rights. As it works to entrench rights protections, the Biden administration should seek to join, not supplant, this new collective effort.
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These WHO interim recommendations on the use of the Astra Zeneca – Oxford University AZD1222 vaccine against Covid-19 were developed on the basis of advice issued by the Strategic Advisory Group of Experts on Immunization (SAGE) and the evidence summary included in the background document referenc...ed below.
This document has been updated: Version 15 March 2022.
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1 February 2021 to 31 January 2022
The Guidance on National Deployment and Vaccination Planning is intended to help countries develop their plan for COVID-19 vaccine introduction.
It estimates that there have been 228,000 additional deaths of children under five in these six countries [Afghanistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka] due to crucial services, ranging from nutrition benefits to immunisation, being halted.
It says the number of children being tr...eated for severe malnutrition fell by more than 80% in Bangladesh and Nepal, and immunisation among children dropped by 35% and 65% in India and Pakistan respectively...
It also estimates that there have been some 3.5 million additional unwanted pregnancies, including 400,000 among teenagers, due to poor or no access to contraception...
The interruption to health services also affected those suffering from other diseases - the report predicts an additional 5,943 deaths across the region among adolescents who couldn't get treated for tuberculosis, malaria, typhoid and HIV/Aids.
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Waste Management & Research 39(1) DOI: 10.1177/0734242X211029175
This publication summarizes the facilitators and barriers that will be encountered in the deinstitutionalization process and identifies useful and proven interventions in Latin American and Caribbean countries. Four areas of work are identified with the respective guidelines or suggestions for actio...n, which should provide an operational guide for countries that are restructuring mental health services and moving toward the deinstitutionalization of psychiatric care.
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This report presents the findings of the Estimating the Size of Populations through a Household Survey (ESPHS) study that took place in 2011. The study utilized a single household survey to estimate the size of several key populations, including sex workers, men who have sex with men (MSM), injectin...g drug users (IDU), and clients of sex workers. These populations include several groups outlined in the National Strategic Plan for HIV and AIDS as most at risk for HIV infection, specifically sex workers and MSM.
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Countries around the world are facing the challenge of increased demand for care of people with COVID-19, compounded by fear, misinformation and limitations on movement that disrupt the delivery of health care for all conditions. Maintaining essential health services: operational guidance for the CO...VID-19 context recommends practical actions that countries can take at national, subregional and local levels to reorganize and safely maintain access to high-quality, essential health services in the pandemic context. It also outlines sample indicators for monitoring essential health services, and describes considerations on when to stop and restart services as COVID-19 transmission recedes and surges.
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9 June 2021
Since its launch, GLASS has expanded in scope and coverage and as of May 2021, 109 countries and territories worldwide have enrolled in GLASS. A key new component in GLASS is the inclusion of antimicrobial consumption (AMC) surveillance at the national level highlighted in this fourth G...LASS report.
The fourth GLASS report summarizes the 2019 data reported to WHO in 2020. It includes data on AMC surveillance from 15 countries and AMR data on 3 106 602 laboratory-confirmed infections reported by 24 803 surveillance sites in 70 countries, compared to the 507 923 infections and 729 surveillance sites reporting to the first data call in 2017.
The report also describes developments over the past years of GLASS and other AMR surveillance programmes led by WHO, including resistance to anti-human immunodeficiency virus and anti-tuberculosis medicines, antimalarial drug efficacy.
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Afr J Tradit Complement Altern Med. (2013) 10(5):210-229
Plants are important sources of medicines. Herbal medicines in Lesotho are exposed to excessive exploitation and habitat destruction. Comprehensive information to promote proper use and conservation of these herbal medicines is lacking. ...This study described the uses of medicinal plants in Lesotho with comparative reference between practice and the literature, highlighting important ethno-medicinal information and conservation status of the plants. Additionally, the study established a repository and monograph for the herbal medicines in Lesotho.
http://dx.doi.org/10.4314/ajtcam.v13i1.20
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March 2021. “A Decade of Destruction: Attacks on health care in Syria,” highlights with chilling detail how this 10-year war strategy has turned hospitals from safe havens into no-go zones where Syrian civilians now fear for their lives.
The figures and findings reflected in the 2020 PMR represent the independent analysis of the United Nations (UN) and its humanitarian partners based on information available to them. Many of the figures provided throughout the document are estimates based on sometimes incomplete and partial data set...s using the methodologies for collection that were available at the time. The Government of Syria has expressed its reservations over the data sources and methodology of assessments used to inform the 2020 Humanitarian Needs Overview (HNO) as well as on a number of HNO findings reflected in the 2020 HRP. This applies throughout the document.
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MAMI refers to the management of small and nutritionally at risk infants under six months of age (infants u6m) and their mothers.
The report and an accompanying series of studies show the global uptake of the World Health Organization (WHO) Surgical Safety Checklist in its first ten years since its launch and recommend ways the Checklist can be more effectively used to improve surgical safety for millions at risk.
The report ...found that uptake has been remarkably positive: the Checklist has been adopted in almost 90% of operating rooms in countries with a high Human Development Index (HDI), a country-level measure of health, education, and standard of living. It was referenced by at least 139 (70%) of the world's countries and is included as a national standard by the health ministries of at least 20 countries. The Checklist has also had beneficial qualitative impact, introducing a culture of safety and improved communication within surgical teams, increasing patient trust, and improving job satisfaction.
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Urbanization, land use, global trade and industrialization have led to profound and negative impacts on nature, biodiversity and ecosystems across the world. The ongoing depletion of natural resources not only afects environmental conditions but also has an enormous impact on the well-being and secu...rity of societies.
This report provides an overview of the impacts of the natural environment on human health. It presents the ways nature and ecosystems can support and protect health and well-being, and describes how nature degradation and loss of biodiversity can threaten human health.
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The humanitarian-development-peace nexus (HDPNX) is a new way of working that offers a framework for coherent joined-up planning and implementation of shared priorities between humanitarian development and peacebuilding actors in emergency settings. To advance the HDPNx in a given country a sh...ared foundational understanding of the current situation is needed. However it can be challenging to find such a resource perpetuating poor understanding planning and operationalization. This is one of a series of country profiles that have been developed by WHO to address that need. Each profile provides an overview of health-related nexus efforts in the country and will be updated regularly.
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Supportive supervision is considered critical to community health worker programme performance, but there is relatively little understanding of how it can be sustainably done at scale. Supportive supervision is a holistic concept that encompasses three key functions: management (ensuring performance...), education (promoting development) and support (responding to needs and problems). Drawing on the experiences of the ward-based outreach team (WBOT) strategy, South Africa’s national community health worker (CHW) programme, this paper explores and describes approaches to supportive supervision in policy and programme guidelines and how these are implemented in supervision practices in the North West Province, an early adopter of the WBOT strategy. Outreach teams typically consist of six CHWs plus a nurse outreach team leader (OTL).
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