This operational guidance provides a structured approach to support countries in sustaining priority services for HIV, viral hepatitis and sexually transmitted infections in the context of reduced external funding. The guidance is intended for national governments, public health programmes, communit...y-led organizations, civil society, technical partners and donors working to safeguard priority services, support phased adaptation, protect health outcomes and preserve hard-won gains.
more
The document "Combating False Information on Vaccines: A Guide for Health Workers" is designed to help health workers address vaccine misinformation. It begins by defining misinformation and explaining why it spreads rapidly, often due to its emotional appeal and simplistic explanations. The guide i...dentifies common sources of vaccine misinformation, including influential individuals who profit from spreading false information. The document outlines strategies for combating misinformation, emphasizing the importance of health workers as trusted sources. It provides tips for identifying misinformation online, such as checking URLs, dates, and author credentials, and recognizing tactics like evoking strong emotions or pushing conspiracy theories. Two main approaches to fighting misinformation are discussed: prebunking and debunking. Prebunking involves warning individuals about potential misinformation before they encounter it, while debunking aims to correct false information after it has been consumed. The guide offers practical examples for both methods. Additionally, the document highlights the role of health workers in supporting peers and patients to trust immunization. It suggests being kind, nonjudgmental, and transparent when addressing concerns, and using motivational interviewing techniques to understand and respond to patients' doubts. Overall, the guide emphasizes the critical role of health workers in maintaining trust in vaccines and provides comprehensive strategies to identify, address, and prevent the spread of vaccine misinformation in clinical and community settings. The guide is a valuable resource for health workers to enhance their ability to combat vaccine misinformation, support informed decision-making, and promote trust in vaccines within their communities, and it addresses a pressing issue with practical solutions, supports trusted health workers, and ultimately aims to protect public health by promoting accurate information and trust in vaccines.
more
The document "Combating False Information on Vaccines: A Guide for EPI Managers" is designed to help Expanded Program on Immunization (EPI) managers address vaccine misinformation. It begins by defining misinformation and explaining why it spreads rapidly, often due to its emotional appeal and simpl...istic explanations. The guide identifies common sources of vaccine misinformation, including influential individuals who profit from spreading false information. The document outlines strategies for combating misinformation, emphasizing the importance of EPI managers as trusted sources. It provides tips for identifying misinformation online, such as checking URLs, dates, and author credentials, and recognizing tactics like evoking strong emotions or pushing conspiracy theories. Two main approaches to fighting misinformation are discussed: prebunking and debunking. Prebunking involves warning individuals about potential misinformation before they encounter it, while debunking aims to correct false information after it has been consumed. The guide offers practical examples for both methods. Additionally, the document highlights the role of EPI managers in supporting health workers to trust immunization. It suggests being kind, nonjudgmental, and transparent when addressing concerns, and using motivational interviewing techniques to understand and respond to health workers' doubts. The guide also emphasizes the importance of creating a supportive environment for health workers, promoting pro-vaccine norms, and providing continuing education on vaccines. Overall, the guide aims to help EPI managers maintain trust in vaccines and provides comprehensive strategies to identify, address, and prevent the spread of vaccine misinformation in clinical and community settings. This document is necessary to equip EPI managers with the knowledge and tools to combat vaccine misinformation, support their teams, and promote trust in vaccines, ultimately protecting public health.
more
Access to safe, effective and quality-assured health products and technologies is crucial for achieving universal health coverage and primary health care goals. The continued growth of the aging population; increasing burden of noncommunicable diseases; growing burden of mental health issues; climat...e change; shifting patterns of vector borne diseases, fungal disease and waterborne diseases; antimicrobial resistance; and new infectious hazards create an ongoing need for equitable access to safe, effective and quality-assured health products and technologies, and renewed investments in research and development for innovative health products and technologies.
The coronavirus pandemic exposed the inequalities in access to health products, highlighting the need for longer-term strategies to strengthen access to health products and technologies outside of and in emergency situations. While technological and scientific advances present an opportunity to increase access to health products and technologies, the risk of increasing inequality due to higher prices for new health products and technologies; the persisting problem of substandard and falsified medical products; a lack of skilled workforce in many low- and middle-income countries; and a lack of data for decisionmaking and for measuring progress present significant challenges.
more
The 2024 edition reviews more than 50 health-related indicators from the Sustainable Development Goals and WHO’s Thirteenth General Programme of Work. It also highlights the findings from the Global health estimates 2021, notably the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on life expectancy and healthy l...ife expectancy.
more
Breastfeeding is a cornerstone of healthy infant nutrition, development and survival. It is critical for countries* to improve breastfeeding rates in order to achieve global targets for newborn and child health and survival, as well as economic growth and environmental sustainability
More than a quarter of the global population still cook meals over open fires and/or on simple stoves fuelled by firewood, agricultural waste, dried dung, charcoal, and coal. This practice results in the emission of harmful and dangerously high levels of household air pollution.
Exposure to this h...ousehold air pollution has been estimated to cause around 3.2 million deaths annually in 2019; these emissions also worsen ambient air quality, alter the global climate, have gendered livelihood impacts, and degrade the local environment.
more
The MEDBOX Annual Report provides an overview of the most important projects of the past year
The brief on key findings from the 2025 edition of the WHO anaemia estimates provides a snapshot of the current status of anaemia among women aged 15–49 years at the country, regional, and global levels, along with progress toward achieving the global anaemia target by 2030, in alignment with the ...Sustainable Development Goals.
more
This document provides technical guidance for manufacturers seeking World Health Organization (WHO) prequalification of in vitro diagnostic devices (IVDs) for malaria, with a focus on rapid diagnostic tests (RDTs) for symptomatic patients. It summarises the minimum performance requirements, includin...g analytical and clinical performance standards, and emphasises considerations relating to diverse specimen types, testing environments and user populations in low- and middle-income countries. The guidance is aligned with the criteria and prequalification processes of the WHO Global Malaria Programme, while clarifying that demonstration of clinical utility is outside the scope of prequalification.
more
The annual bulletin of the Mekong Malaria Elimination (MME) programme is a yearly report that reviews ongoing efforts to combat multidrug resistance and eliminate malaria in the 6 countries of the Greater Mekong subregion (GMS): Cambodia, China (Yunnan province), Lao People's Democratic Republic, My...anmar, Thailand and Viet Nam.
more
This document provides technical guidance for manufacturers seeking World Health Organization (WHO) prequalification of in vitro diagnostic devices (IVDs) for malaria, with a focus on rapid diagnostic tests (RDTs) for symptomatic patients. It summarises the minimum performance requirements, includin...g analytical and clinical performance standards, and emphasises considerations relating to diverse specimen types, testing environments and user populations in low- and middle-income countries. The guidance is aligned with the criteria and prequalification processes of the WHO Global Malaria Programme, while clarifying that demonstration of clinical utility is outside the scope of prequalification.
more
Malaria remains a significant public health concern in the SADC region, accounting for 20% of childhood deaths, as well as prompting numerous outpatient visits and hospitalisations. Around three-quarters of the population, including 35 million children under the age of five and 8.5 million pregnant ...women, are at risk. Transmission patterns vary from high and stable in the north to malaria-free in the south, with low, unstable and seasonal zones in between. Although interventions such as indoor residual spraying (IRS), insecticide-treated nets (ITNs/LLINs), intermittent preventive treatment in pregnancy (IPTp), rapid diagnostic tests (RDTs), and artemisinin-based combination therapies (ACTs) have reduced the malaria burden, challenges persist in terms of funding, human resources, surveillance, and cross-border coordination. Achieving malaria elimination in the SADC region requires harmonised regional standards, strengthened surveillance, and improved access to quality treatment and policy prioritisation.
Accessed on 27/08/2025.
more
For education to be competency-based and effective, appropriate training methodologies have to be used to support the learner to have the appropriate knowledge and to translate this knowledge into skills and competencies. Such education and training should lead to a change in attitudes, beliefs a...nd values, thus making the palliative care graduate able to do their job very effectively. To that end, APCA has developed this new resource, which is a guide to effective teaching methodologies in palliative care, targeting educators and trainers across Africa. This guide has been developed to enable educators and trainers to acquire knowledge and skills for using effective, practical, participatory and experiential teaching methods, and to use these in extending learning to all health care providers in Africa. The methods presented in this guide are based on existing practical and documented evidence of effective palliative care education.
more
In the absence of a such a measure, and building on the success of developing the APCA African
Palliative Outcome Scale (POS) for adults, the African Palliative Care Association has developed the
APCA African Children’s POS. The tool has been validated across diseases, countries, settings and ...
languages and used in both quality improvement and research studies. Moreover, feedback on the
tool from doctors and nurses who have used it has been very supportive, with providers perceiving
it as an easy-to-use instrument that helps them undertake holistic assessments that in part entail
discussing difficult issues.
This booklet is a practical guide intended to help users employ the APCA African POS correctly.
Following a discussion of the origins and background to the APCA African PPOS, the guide discusses
the measurement of outcomes, the development of the tool and its use (including the analysis of
collected data), before finishing with illustrative examples of the use of the questionnaire.
more
In this guide, the African Palliative Care Association (APCA) has put together evidence‑based information on the use of specific opioids commonly used in the management of moderate‑to‑severe pain to manage both cancer and non‑cancer pain. APCA hopes that this guide will be a useful tool i...n aiding health professionals at all levels of healthcare delivery to assess and manage pain using opioids. All opioids included in this guide are listed on the WHO model list of essential medicines but we remind readers that oral morphine is the standard opioid of choice for managing moderate‑to‑severe pain and we recommend that it should be made available at all times.
more
WHO, as the coordinating authority on international health, supports countries in protecting public health through evidence-based policies and actions. Considering the significant health burden and the multiple potential benefits of interventions, the WHO Air Quality, Energy and Health Unit aims to ...support countries by providing evidence, building institutional capacity and leveraging the “health argument” to convene sectors to tackle air pollution and accelerate energy access.
more
AIDS Behav. 2022 Feb;26(2):375-384.doi: 10.1007/s10461-021-03391.
A community health worker (CHW) model can promote HIV prevention and treatment behaviors,
especially in highly mobile populations. In a fishing community in Rakai, Uganda, the Rakai
Health Sciences Program implemented a communit...y health worker HIV intervention called Health
Scouts. The situated Information, Motivation, and Behavioral Skills (sIMB) framework informed
the design and a qualitative evaluation of the intervention. We interviewed 51 intervention
clients and coded transcripts informed by sIMB framework dimensions.
more
Current HIV/AIDS Reports (2022) 19:358–374. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11904-022-00615-z.
MINDSPACE is an acronym developed by the UK's behavioural insights team to summarise nine key influences on human behaviour: Messenger, Incentives, Norms, Default, Salience, Priming, Affect, Commitment, and E...go. These effects have been used in various settings to design interventions that encourage positive behaviours. Currently, over 200 institutionalised behavioural insight teams exist internationally, which may draw upon the MINDSPACE framework to inform policy and improve public services.
more
This brief report summarizes recent information on HIV drug resistance (HIVDR) in the era of integrase-strand transfer inhibitors (INSTI) for HIV prevention and treatment.