Enhancing Men’s Role in HIV Prevention
Climate change and health vulnerability and adaptation assessment
In 2013 the World Health Organization (WHO) published the report Protecting health from climate change:
vulnerability and adaptation assessment. The aim was to provide basic and flexible guidance on conducting national or subnati...onal assessments of current and future vulnerability (the susceptibility of a population or region to harm) to the health risks of climate change, and of policies and programmes that could increase resilience, taking into account the multiple determinants of climate-sensitive health outcomes.
That guidance has been a very useful tool, applied to more than 50 countries and settings, and has helped countries to prepare their health contributions to United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change national adaptation plans.
Since the launch of the guidance, WHO, technical partners such as Health Canada, and countries have learned much in terms of its applicability in different countries, at national and local levels.
At the same time, knowledge on climate change and health has increased.
WHO, the Pan American Health Organization and Health Canada have produced this updated version, which aims to better support countries in their assessments by proposing a simpler tool that incorporates all lessons learned.
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The frequency of infectious disease epidemics is increasing, and the role of the health sector in the management of epidemics is crucial in terms of response. In the context of infectious disease epidemics, the use of climate-informed early warning systems (EWS) has the potential to increase the eff...ectiveness of disease control by intervening before or at the beginning of the epidemic curve, instead of during the downward slope.
Currently, the initiation of interventions is heavily reliant on routine disease surveillance systems – data that often arrive too late for preventative response. However, forecasting of disease outbreaks using surveillance and weather information shows promising potential – there also remains further scope to examine seasonal climate forecasts. By combining these elements in new EWS based on computational models, it will be possible to improve both the timeliness and impact of disease control. The World Health Organization (WHO) is strengthening existing surveillance systems for infectious diseases to enable the development of more robust and timely EWS, which has resulted in the rapid development and innovation of EWS for disease outbreaks.
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19 February 2021
The overall objective of this prospective meta-analyses (PMA) is to estimate the effect of anti-IL-6 therapy compared with usual care in hospitalized patients with suspected or confirmed COVID-19. The primary comparison is of the class effect of anti-IL-6 therapies. It will also es...timate the effects of specific anti-IL-6 therapies.
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Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is a global public health crisis that resulted in 1.14 million deaths in 2021. According to the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation estimates, 96 416 of these deaths occurred in the World Health Organization (WHO) Eastern Mediterranean Region. All 22 countr...ies/territories in the Eastern Mediterranean Region are enrolled in the global AMR
surveillance system, and 17 countries/territories reported data in 2024 (for the year 2023). The total number of isolates reported to the system increased sixfold between 2017 and 2022, but the proportion of blood isolates is relatively very low. Most of the data come from public sector laboratories or hospitals, although the private sector has increased its participation in some countries/territories recently. Three pathogens account for three quarters of all the reported pathogens – Escherichia coli
(26%), Klebsiella pneumoniae (23%), and Staphylococcus aureus (22%).
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The Global Programme on Tuberculosis & Lung Health of the World Health Organization (WHO/GTB) is now combining all current recommendations into one overall set of consolidated guidelines on TB. The guidelines contain recommendations pertaining to all areas related to the programmatic management of T...B (e.g. screening, preventive treatment, diagnostics, patient support, and the treatment of drug-susceptible TB and DR-TB). The consolidated guidelines contain modules specific to each programmatic area.
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The document titled "Manual for Stratifying Malaria Risk and the Elimination of Foci" by PAHO provides guidance for countries in the Americas on how to systematically assess and classify malaria transmission risk at subnational levels. It outlines a standardized approach to stratification and the id...entification of active transmission foci, helping public health authorities prioritize interventions, allocate resources efficiently, and implement targeted strategies to accelerate progress toward malaria elimination.
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All malaria-endemic countries in the Region of the Americas have taken on the challenge to eliminate the disease and to put in place measures to orient their health programs and strategies in that direction. This manual explains how to implement measures to achieve malaria elimination and prevent it...s reestablishment by increasing the intensity and quality of interventions, reorienting initiatives, reducing delays that favor transmission, and ensuring adequate monitoring to adjust interventions.
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This malaria case management training manual was developed by the Federal Ministry of Health (FMOH) of Ethiopia, in collaboration with several national and international partners. Primarily based on WHO guidelines and training materials, as well as the 2022 national malaria guidelines and various te...chnical documents, it aims to provide a standardised, simplified resource for clinical health workers in both the public and private sectors in Ethiopia. The manual aims to provide clinical health workers in both the public and private sectors in Ethiopia with a standardised, simplified resource.
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Meeting report, Kampala, Uganda,
7–8 November 2023
Anopheles stephensi is an invasive mosquito species which has been found spreading across Africa. While this species presents a new challenge for malaria control on the continent, its surveillance and management have been ongoing in Asia for many years. This document aims to summarize key lessons fr...om 3 countries – India, the Islamic Republic of Iran and Sri Lanka – that have been working to control An. stephensi. It is hoped that their experiences and insights will be valuable for countries encountering An. stephensi for the first time.
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The purpose of the guideline is to provide information to stakeholders on the necessary requirements for a complete prequalification dossier for insecticide-treated nets (ITNs). Its aim is to establish the baseline for dossier requirements which are necessary to assess ITN products for the purposes ...of prequalification, describe the data requirements for fulfilling each dossier module, and to provide standardized information for applicants and testing facilities generating data for ITN prequalification dossiers. The document is supported by implementation guidance documents which provide specific information and considerations for how applicants may approach the generation of supporting information and compilation of a complete product dossier.
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This global guidance was developed to support malaria-free countries and those that are close to malaria elimination to prevent re-establishment. The document outlines key concepts and principles for preventing re-establishment and provides guidance on strategies, interventions, planning and managem...ent. Country examples are included to highlight good practices and illustrate practical applications.
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National tuberculosis (TB) prevalence surveys provide a nationally representative measurement of the burden of TB disease in the population, at a given point in time. Repeat surveys allow assessment of trends and tracking of progress towards national and global targets for reductions in TB disease b...urden. Survey data also provide important insights that can help national TB programmes to identify ways to improve TB diagnosis and treatment.
National TB prevalence surveys are relevant in countries that do not yet have national disease notification and vital registration systems that are of sufficiently high quality and coverage to allow reliable tracking of TB disease burden.
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Scope: The purpose of this guideline is to assist health care providers caring for patients with suspected or confirmed arboviral disease caused by dengue, chikungunya, Zika or yellow fever viruses. This guideline includes recommendations on the management of patients admitted to health care facilit...ies (defined for the purpose of this guidance as “severe disease”) and those seen in outpatient facilities (defined for the purpose of this guidance as “non-severe disease”).
Target audience: This guideline is designed primarily for health care providers who manage patients with clinically apparent arboviral infections. The guideline can be applied at all levels of the health system, including community-based care, primary care, emergency departments and hospital wards.
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Scaling Up Mental Health Care In Rural India
As information about COVID-19 is rapidly evolving, it can be challenging to navigate and synthesize all of the information. The purpose of this document is to provide a synthesized, indexed reference of accurate, standardized COVID-19 information from trustworthy sources. Information is presented in... simple, clear language to support the development of messages and materials needed for social and behavior change interventions.
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The Practical manual on laboratory strengthening, 2022 update provides practical guidance on implementation of WHO recommendations and best practices for TB laboratory strengthening. It is an updated version of the GLI Practical Guide to Laboratory Strengthening published in 2017 and provides the la...test practical guidance on use of newly recommended diagnostics as well as guidance in key technical areas, including quality assurance and quality management systems, specimen collection and registration, procurement and supply-chain management, diagnostic connectivity, biosafety, data management, human resources, strategic planning, and model algorithms. The key changes are:
inclusion of recent or updated WHO recommendations for tests to diagnose TB and detect drug resistance;
alignment with the latest WHO critical concentrations for phenotypic drug-susceptibility testing (DST) and the new definitions of pre-XDR-TB and XDR-TB;
updated information on building quality-assured TB testing and management capacity using the Stepwise Laboratory Quality Improvement Process Towards Accreditation (SLIPTA) approach (Score-TB package1);
updated information on assessing, analysing and optimising TB diagnostic networks; and
updated information on the use of next-generation sequencing (NGS) to detect mutations associated with drug resistance for surveillance purposes.
The document also provides references to resources and tools relevant for work on laboratory strengthening.
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