The aim of this survey was to provide evidence-based recommendations to improve the overall quality of Emergency Medical Services (EMS) in Ukraine, with a special focus on the oblasts (administrative regions) of Luhansk and Donetsk. The objectives were to: describe the EMS system in Ukraine with reg...ards to its capacity, utilization and efficiency across selected geographic regions and catchment areas to assess the utilization and outcomes of current prehospital EMS care; identify perceived needs in key areas based on input from local stakeholders, including EMS providers, hospital-care providers administrative staff and patients; create an evaluation model of EMS performance; and provide recommendations for improvements to the EMS system in Ukraine.
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Patients with suspected coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) can infect others at any time, including during transfer and transport. COVID-19 is a new infectious disease that requires contact and droplet precautions; lapses in infection prevention and control (IPC) can easily happen at vulnerable mom...ents such as during transfer. This guide aims to identify key steps to prepare the community and health system response to ensure IPC is maintained during transfer and transport. This guide is intended for personnel involved in coordinating and performing transfer and transport of patients with suspected COVID-19 requiring hospital care.
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In the current absence of vaccine for COVID-19, public health response target breaking the chain of infection by focusing on the mode of transmission. This paper summarizes current evidence-base around the transmission dynamics, pathogenic, and clinical features of COVID-19, to critically identify i...f there are any gaps in the current IPC guidelines.
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The article "Air Pollution: The Emergence of a Major Global Health Risk Factor" discusses the significant health impacts of air pollution, a leading risk factor for global mortality. It highlights the adverse effects of fine particulate matter (PM2.5) and tropospheric ozone, linking them to cardiova...scular and respiratory diseases, cancer, and reduced life expectancy. While high-income countries have reduced air pollution levels, low- and middle-income countries face rising pollution, contributing to 4.9 million deaths in 2017. The article emphasizes the need for research to understand pollution’s health effects, identify key sources, and evaluate the effectiveness of interventions to improve air quality globally.
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PLOS Glob Public Health 4(12): e0004035. https://doi. org/10.1371/journal.pgph.0004035.
A new formulation of praziquantel, arpraziquantel (arPZQ), has been developed for preschool-
aged children (PSAC) to fill the treatment gap for this age group in schistosomiasis control and
elimination program...s. There is now a priority to ensure that the drug reaches all at-risk PSAC
in endemic areas, including hard-to-reach areas and populations. This study aimed to deter-
mine schistosomiasis treatment-related contextual factors among fishermen and island popu-
lations in Homa Bay County, Kenya, and to identify a suitable platform to deliver arPZQ.
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The emergency Water, Sanitation and Hygiene Promotion (WASH) gap analysis project was funded by The Humanitarian Innovation Fund (HIF), a program managed by Enhancing Learning and Research for Humanitarian Assistance (ELRHA) in partnership with the Active Learning Network for Accountability and Per...formance in Humanitarian Action (ALNAP), and is a component of a larger initiative to identify and support innovations in emergency WASH. This paper gives an explanation of the background, methodology, and findings of the program.
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Nigeria is Africa’s most populous nation and accounts for nearly one quarter of the continent’s maternal, newborn and child deaths. In the spirit of the global Countdown to 2015 for Maternal, Newborn and Child Health and the Nigerian Saving One Million Lives Initiative, these state data profiles... have been designed to prompt and inform policy and programme action.
Without data there can be no accountability. Without accountability we risk making no progress for Nigeria’s women and children. The data included in these profiles come mainly from large-scale, periodic household surveys. Continued efforts are needed to strengthen civil registration, vital statistics and health management information systems, as well as the institutional capacity to gather and use these data.
Updated from 2011, these data profiles can be used to compare progress in different areas, identify opportunities to address specific coverage gaps, and monitor implementation.
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A training package for building capacity of healthcare teams in health facilities for continous quality improvement of maternal and newborn healthcare. The focus is on the care of mothers and newborns at the time of child birth since a large proportion of maternal deaths, newborn deaths and stillbir...ths happen around that time.
The 4-Step POCQI (Point of care Quality Improvement) package includes Coaching manual and Learner manual that present a demystified and simple model of quality improvement at the level of health facilities using local data to identify quality gaps, analyse underlying causes and improve health care practices in their own specific context without much additional resources.
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Terminology used to describe the transmission of pathogens through the air varies across scientific disciplines, organizations and the general public. While this has been the case for decades, during the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, the terms ‘airborne’, ‘airborne transmission’ a...nd ‘aerosol transmission’ were used in different ways by stakeholders in different scientific disciplines, which may have contributed to misleading information and confusion about how pathogens are transmitted in human populations.
This global technical consultation report brings together viewpoints from experts spanning a range of disciplines with the key objective of seeking consensus regarding the terminology used to describe the transmission of pathogens through the air that can potentially cause infection in humans.
This consultation aimed to identify terminology that could be understood and accepted by different technical disciplines. The agreed process was to develop a consensus document that could be endorsed by global agencies and entities. Despite the complex discussions and challenges, significant progress was made during the consultation process, particularly the consensus on a set of descriptors to describe how pathogens are transmitted through the air and the related modes of transmission. WHO recognizes the important areas where consensus was not achieved and will continue to address these areas in follow-up consultations.
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The 2021 WHO health and climate change global survey report provides a valuable snapshot of the overall progress governments have made in addressing the health risks of climate change. The findings on key health and climate change indicators aim to empower policy makers to: make informed decisions o...n the implementation of policies and plans; identify evidence gaps; and better understand the barriers to achieving adaptation and resilience priorities in the health sector while maximizing the health benefits of sector-wide climate mitigation efforts.
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The UNICEF-GAIN Partnership Project
The report notes that iodine deficiency is a leading cause of preventable brain damage worldwide. Insufficient iodine during pregnancy and infancy results in neurological and psychological deficits, reducing a child’s IQ by 8 to 10 points. This translates ...into major losses in the cognitive capital of entire nations and thus their socio-economic development.
The report outlines urgent steps to reduce the risk of mental impairment to babies’ growing brains:
• Integrate salt iodization into national plans to support children’s nutrition and brain development in early childhood;
• Align salt iodization and salt reduction agendas;
• Establish surveillance systems to identify unreached populations;
• Strengthen regulatory systems to enforce existing legislation on salt iodization;
• Recognize the growing importance of fortified foods as potential sources of iodized salt.
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Interim Guidance 7 March 2020
This document provides technical guidance for government authorities, health workers, and other key stakeholders to guide response to community spread. It will be updated as new information or technical guidance become available. For countries that are already preparin...g or responding, this document can also serve as a checklist to identify any remaining gaps.
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this toolkit presents a structured, rating-based methodology designed to provide a rapid, comprehensive assessment of the capacity of the human resource support system for a country’s supply chain. Data are gathered from a document review, focus group discussions, and in-country stakeholder interv...iews to identify the strengths, areas for improvement, opportunities, and challenges for a wide range of human resource inputs and components. The findings are transformed into specific recommendations and strategies for action based on an understanding of country priorities and programming gaps. It includes Word templates; PowerPoint templates and Exce-based Diagnostic Dashboard
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To assess the quality of Indian clinical practice guidelines (CPG)s for the management of cardiovascular conditions, MEDLINE, Embase, Google Scholar and websites of relevant medical associations and government organisations were searched, from inception until August 2020, to identify Indian CPGs for... the management of cardiovascular disease (CVD) conditions, produced in or between 2010 and 2019. Excluded were CPGs that were not specific to India, focused on alternative systems of medicine, of non-CVD conditions (even if they included a component of CVD), and those related to the electronic devices, cardiac biomarkers, or diagnostic procedures. Quality of the each included CPG was assessed using the AGREE II tool by four reviewers in duplicate, independently. Each AGREE II domain score and overall quality score was considered low (≤40%), moderate (40.1%-59.9%), and high (≥60%). Of the 23 CPGs included, six (26%) were reported to be adapted from other CPGs. Fourteen (61%) CPGs were produced by medical associations, six (26%) by individual authors and three (13%) by government agencies. Based on the AGREE II overall quality score, two (9%) CPGs were of high quality, four (17%) and seventeen (74%) CPGs were of moderate and low quality, respectively. Except for scope and purpose, and clarity of presentation all other domains were rated low. The quality of most Indian CPGs for managing CVD conditions assessed using the AGREE II tool was moderate-to-low. Combined efforts from different stakeholders are needed to develop, disseminate and implement high-quality CPGs while identifying and addressing barriers to their uptake to optimize patient care and improve outcomes.
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High variability in the definition and interpretation of organized cancer screening needs to be addressed systematically. Moreover, the relevance of the current practice of categorizing screening programmes dichotomously into organized or non-organized needs to be revisited in the context of conside...rable heterogeneity that exists in the delivery of cancer screening in the real world. We aimed to identify the essential and desirable criteria for organized cancer screening that serve as a charter of best practices in cancer screening.
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Since the discovery of insulin nearly 100 years ago, advances in diabetes treatments and therapies have transformed the lives of people
with diabetes (PwD), notably reducing the daily burden of its management.
Newer technologies, including those driven by artificial intelligence, have the potentia...l to further improve the quality of life of PwD and help
identify and diagnose people at risk of developing Type 2 diabetes and diabetes-related complications early. However, medical and technological advances alone are not enough to fix the diabetes challenge. It is also critical to acknowledge the complexity and the seriousness of diabetes, its impact on the quality of life and well-being of over 32 million PwD in the EU and the financial burden it represents for health systems and society at large.
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This document builds on the Background document prepared for the September 4-5, 2014 Consultation. It includes proposed elements to consider during the development of a framework to assist decision-making at global and national level.
The aim of the document is to assist Member States and releva...nt partners in their discussions to identify the best approaches to ensure the accelerated evaluation and use of available or near-term therapies and vaccines for the treatment and prevention of EVD. The document calls for a coordinated effort by the international community to remove unnecessary obstacles towards this goal.
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Information on the causes of cancer at specific sites is important to cancer control planners, cancer researchers, cancer patients, and the general public. The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) Monograph series, which has classified human carcinogens for more than 40 years, recently... completed a review to provide up-to-date information on the cancer sites associated with more than 100 carcinogenic agents. Based on IARC’s review, we listed the cancer sites associated with each agent and then rearranged this information to list the known and suspected causes of cancer at each site. We also summarized the rationale for classifications that were based on mechanistic data. This information, based on the forthcoming IARC Monographs Volume 100, offers insights into the current state-of-the-science of carcinogen identification. Use of mechanistic data to identify carcinogens is increasing, and epidemiological research is identifying additional carcinogens and cancer sites or confirming carcinogenic potential under conditions of lower exposure. Nevertheless, some common human cancers still have few (or no) identified causal agents.
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This Collection links to the websites of providers of free training. We monitor these links regularly, however if the training providers change their websites, some of these links may not work. All other resources on the Humanitarian Library can be downloaded directly from the Library. This Collecti...on is monitored daily to identify new and updated materials.
This Collection contains technical guidelines from leading global institutions to support the operation of medical centres responding to the Covid-19 virus. Current guidance comes from the European Center for disease prevention and control, Centre Hospitalier de Grenoble, Elsevier, Health Protection Surveillance Center, Public Health England, Stadt Essen and the World Health Organisation.
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This report provides a review and analysis of the research landscape for three diseases – Chagas disease, human African trypanosomiasis and leishmaniasis – that disproportionately afflict poor and remote populations with limited access to health services. It represents the work of the disease re...ference group on Chagas Disease, Human African Trypanosomiasis and Leishmaniasis (DRG3) which was established to identify key research priorities through review of research evidence and input from stakeholders' consultations.
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