During the year 2022, COVID-19 continued to be a significant challenge in Eritrea as in many other countries across the world. As COVID-19 devastated communities around the world, WHO worked with the MoH to strengthen the National and Sub-National health systems in order to meet community needs and ...mitigate the devastation during the pandemic and beyond.
One of the major achievements in the year 2022 was the beginning of the journey towards validation of
the elimination of mother to child transmission of HIV, syphilis, and hepatitis B. This is the culmination of years
of commitment and determination by the political leadership, national and international partnerships to
reduce the associated indices to levels that qualify for elimination.
more
The main objective of these guidelines is to provide guidance on up-to-date, uniform, evidence-informed practices for suspecting, diagnosing and managing various forms of extra-pulmonary tuberculosis (EPTB) at all levels of healthcare delivery. They can then contribute to the National Programme to i...mprove detection, care and outcomes in EPTB; to help the programme with initiation of treatment, adherence and completion whilst minimizing drug toxicity and overtreatment; and contribute to practices that minimize the development of drug resistance.
more
The Perinatal Mental Health Project (PMHP) provides training to health
workers and community-based workers involved in caring for mothers. This
handbook is intended as a supplement to this training programme and as a
resource to anyone involved with mothers and mothers-to-be.
The handbook should... be used in an active way: use it and add to it as best
suits your local setting. The intended outcome of this handbook is to improve
the quality of service offered to women in emotional distress and to
meet the needs of maternal health workers, like you, who want to be better
equipped in this task.
The handbook covers a range of topics. Each chapter has a clear set of
learning objectives and a summary. Some chapters include practical activities
which should help with linking the theory with your practice.
more
N Engl J Med 2022; 386:911-922, DOI: 10.1056/NEJMoa2104535
Four months of antituberculosis treatment was noninferior to 6 months of treatment in children with drug-susceptible, nonsevere, smear-negative tuberculosis (SHINE Study)
Seizures constitute the most common neurological problem in children and the majority of epilepsy has its onset in childhood. Appropriate diagnosis and management of childhood epilepsy is essential to improve quality of life in these children. Evidence-based clinical practice guidelines, modified to... the Indian setting by a panel of experts, are not available.
more
This guideline is intended to provide recommendations to applicants wishing to submit applications for the registration of medicines. It represents the Medicines Control Council’s current thinking on the safety, quality and efficacy of medicines.
USAID funded/ Primary Health Care Project in Iraq (PHCPI) in cooperation with Iraqi Ministry of Health (MOH) aims to promote Primary Health Care (PHC) services provided by Primary Health Care Clinics (PHCCs) in Iraq in order to achieve the development goal in enhancing the PHC provision system throu...gh achieving the following results: First: Enhancing management and operations systems, which support clinical care. Second: Improving the quality of the delivered PHC according to quality standards. Third: Enhancing and expanding local community participation and partnership in PHC. Maintaining the medical & service devices in the hospitals and health clinics besides making them function according to the adapted standard specifications, lead to providing most efficient medical services for people and accomplish the purposes for which they were invented. Maintenance and repair of facilities and infrastructure, and keeping them safe and clean are also of the important approaches for the results referred to in (first) and (second) above. This can be achieved through enhancing and developing facilities, and medical & service devices management. This guideline seeks to develop work mechanism for engineers, technicians and the PHCCs’ facilities and medical & service equipment maintenance workers; clarify the concept of maintenance, its importance and classifications in health area, its planning and implementation, the tasks and duties of other directorates and departments of the Ministry in relation to all kinds of maintenance. Add to that preparing documents and forms, which are used in documenting and monitoring the steps required to be accomplished in the maintenance of PHCCs’ facilities and medical & service equipment, for the equipment to perform the best possible services for people and get their satisfaction.
more
Antibiotics have been a critical public health tool since the discovery of Penicillin in 1928, saving the lives of millions of people around the world. In developing country like ours, where the burden of treatable disease is very high and access to health facilities and laboratories is difficult, a...ntibiotics have long acted as miracle drugs. Today, however, the emergence of drug
resistance in bacteria is reversing the miracles of the past eighty years, with drug choices for the treatment of many bacterial infections becoming increasingly limited, expensive, and in some cases, nonexistent. Diseases previously regarded as relatively easy to manage are much harder to treat as doctors must use “last-resort” drugs that are more costly, take longer to work
and are often unavailable or unaffordable in developing countries. Moreover, regular prescription of antibiotics, random treatment, over the counter sales, inadequate dosage, inclusion of antibiotics in animal feeds and agriculture has contributed equally to emergence of antibiotics resistance as silent epidemic within the country.
more
The recommendations in these guidelines promote the use of simple, non-invasive diagnostic tests to assess the stage of liver disease and eligibility for treatment; prioritize treatment for those with most advanced liver disease and at greatest risk of mortality; and recommend the preferred use of n...ucleos(t)ide analogues with a high barrier to drug resistance (tenofovir and entecavir, and entecavir in children aged 2–11 years) for first- and second-line treatment. Recommendations for the treatment of HBV/HIV-coinfected persons are based on the WHO 2013 Consolidated guidelines on the use of antiretroviral drugs for treating and preventing HIV infection, which will be updated in 2015.
more
The TB section of the toolkit presents selected (a) programmatic output and (b) outcome and impact indicators for TB. In addition to recommended monitoring programs and measuring the outcomes and impact of TB programs, indicators for the strengthening of health systems, strengthening of community sy...stems and some indicators that measure quality of services are also included.
more
Universal health coverage ensures everyone has access to the health services they need without suffering financial hardship as a result. In December 2012, a UN resolution was passed encouraging governments to move towards providing universal access to affordable and quality health care services. As ...countries move towards it, common challenges are emerging -- challenges to which research can help provide answers.
more
Infectious disease outbreaks and epidemics are increasing in frequency, scale and impact. Health care facilities can amplify the transmission of emerging infectious diseases or multidrug-resistant organisms (MDRO) within their settings and communities. Therefore, evidence-based infection prevention ...and control (IPC) measures in health care facilities are critical for preventing and containing outbreaks, while still delivering safe, effective and quality health care. This toolkit is intended to support IPC improvements for outbreak management in all such facilities, both public and private throughout the health system. Specifically, this document systematically describes a framework of overarching principles to approach the preparedness, readiness and response outbreak management phases. The document also provides a toolkit of resource links to guide specific actions for each infectious disease and/or MDRO outbreak management phase at any health facility. This document is specifically tailored to an audience of stakeholders who establish and monitor health care facility-level IPC programs including: IPC focal points, epidemiologists, public health experts, outbreak response incident managers, facility-level IPC committee(s), safety and quality leads and managers, and other facility level IPC stakeholders.
more
Myanmar is one of the world’s 22 high tuberculosis (TB) burden countries, and supporting TB control in Myanmar is a global priority. This report reflects the findings, discussions, conclusions and recommendations of the fourth international review mission of the Myanmar National TB Programme (NTP)..., which brought together international and national partners to review progress in TB control and to offer guidance on future TB control directions and efforts.
A high-quality national disease prevalence survey completed in 2010 demonstrated a TB disease burden two to three times higher than anticipated on the basis of previous surveys. In 2011 about 200 000 adults and children will have developed TB, including 20 000 HIV infected and 9000 suffering from MDR-TB, both of which will require additional care and costly treatment. TB remains among the top killers of adults, and more women die of TB than from maternal causes.
more
Revised working paper following AVAREF meeting February 2019.
WHO has published a roadmap aiming to coordinate partners’ actions and contributions to the licensing and roll-out of Merck’s Ebola vaccine (VSV-ZEBOV) in African countries. The vaccine was developed during the West Africa Ebola epi...demic of 2014-2016, during which more than 11 000 people lost their lives to the disease. The vaccine was tested in European and African countries at the time and is currently used under an “expanded access” protocol in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
WHO will expedite prequalification and licensing of the vaccine for use in countries at risk of Ebola outbreaks and will coordinate work between those countries’ regulatory authorities and the European Medicines Agency and the US Food and Drug Administration.
more
Key questions
What is already known?
Critical illness is common throughout the world and COVID-19 has caused a global surge of critically ill patients.
There are large gaps in the quality of care for critically ill patients, especially in low-staffed and low-resourced settings, and mortal...ity rates are high.
Essential Emergency and Critical Care (EECC) is the effective lifesaving care of low-cost and low-complexity that all critically ill patients should receive in all wards in all hospitals in the world.
What are the new findings?
The clinical processes that comprise EECC and the essential care of critically ill patients with COVID-19 have been specified in a large consensus among clinical experts worldwide.
The resource requirements for hospitals to be ready to provide this care has been described.
What do the new findings imply?
The findings can be used across medical specialties in hospitals worldwide to prioritise and implement essential care for reducing preventable deaths.
Inclusion of the EEEC processes could increase the impact of pandemic preparedness and response programmes and policies for health systems strengthening.
more
Lymphatic filariasis is a neglected tropical disease that can cause permanent disability through disruption of the lymphatic system. This disease is caused by parasitic filarial worms that are transmitted by mosquitos. Mass drug administration (MDA) of antihelmintics is recommended by WHO to elimina...te lymphatic filariasis as a public health problem. This study aims to produce the first geospatial estimates of the global prevalence of lymphatic filariasis infection over time, to quantify progress towards elimination, and to identify geographical variation in distribution of infection.
more
The goal of the draft global action plan is to ensure, for as long as possible, continuity of successful treatment and prevention of infectious diseases with effective and safe medicines that are quality-assured, used in a responsible way, and accessible to all who need them.
The International Association for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and
Allied Professions (IACAPAP) aims to promote the mental health and
development of children and adolescents worldwide. It seeks to achieve
this by contributing to the training and professional development of the
child and adole...scent mental health professionals by disseminating up-todate
and high-quality information through its publications, organization
of biennial international congresses, and study groups. IACAPAP has a
long tradition of publishing monographs released to coincide with the
congresses, with the first one published in 1970.
more
Vision Statement
From birth to 8 years of age, all children of the Republic of the Union of Myanmar will receive holistic, high-quality and developmentally-appropriate care from their parents, caregivers and service providers to ensure they will be happy, healthy, well nourished, socially adept..., emotionally balanced and well protected in conditions of freedom, equity and dignity in order to contribute positively to their families, communities and the nation.
more
In the area of nutrition and HIV, children deserve special attention because of their additional needs to ensure growth and development and their dependency on adults for adequate care. It was therefore proposed to first develop guidelines for children and thereafter consider a similar approach for... other specific groups.
The content of these guidelines acknowledges that wasting and undernutrition in HIV-infected children reflect a series of failures within the health system, the home and community and not just a biological process related to virus and host interactions. In trying to protect the nutritional well-being or reverse the undernutrition experienced by infected children, issues of food insecurity, food quantity and quality as well as absorption and digestion of nutrients are considered. Interventions are proposed that are practical and feasible in resource-poor settings and offer a prospect for clinical improvement.
The guidelines do not cover the feeding of infants 0 to 6 months old, because the specialised care in this age group is already addressed in other WHO guidelines and documents.
more