Historically, the discovery of the sulfa drugs in the 1930s and the subsequent development of penicillin during World War II ushered in a new era in the treatment of infectious diseases. Infections that were common causes of death and disease in the pre-...antibiotic era - rheumatic fever, syphilis, cellulitis and bacterial pneumonia - became treatable, and over the next 20 years most of the classes of antibiotics that find clinical use today were discovered and changed medicine in a profound way. The availability of antibiotics enabled revolutionary medical interventions such as cancer chemotherapy, organ transplants and essentially all major invasive surgeries from joint replacements to coronary bypass. Antibiotics, though, are unique among drugs in that their use precipitates their obsolescence. Paradoxically, these cures select for organisms that can evade them, fueling an arms race between microbes, clinicians and drug discoverers.
Wright BMC Biology 2010, 8:123 http://www.biomedcentral.com/1741-7007/8/12
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
Community health nurses have the potential to make significant contributions to meet the health care needs of various population groups in a variety of community settings. In order to assess the extent to which CHNs are achieving this potential, WHO conducted a study between 2010 and 2014 that exami...ned the status of community health nursing in 22 countries, 13 of which were experiencing a critical shortage of health care workers. The study revealed that the countries surveyed had the basic and operational framework for optimizing CHN in their health systems as evidenced by the availability of PHC structures to guide interventions. However, challenges were identified related to the education, practice and management of CHNs in these countries. The major challenges identified were: Limited availability of career opportunities; poor worker retention; low recognition for CHNs; inadequate and unsupportive working conditions and environments; absence of educational standards; varying educational entry-level requirements for CHN programmes; and a lack of consensus on the scope of practice for CHNs.
more
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.
more
People-centered approaches that help communities maintain protective behaviours and follow guidelines set out by public health and government agencies are more important than ever. The evidence is clear, communities play a role in preventing and controlling epidemics and they are best able to take a...ction and slow or stop the spread of disease when properly engaged and empowered. This toolbox in 2 parts offers best practice approaches to community engagement with families. Promoting individual and joint responsibilities for the safety of the family, this toolbox aims to bring families and households together to manage shared risks and agree to safe behaviours critical for their safety and the safety of their community.
more
A guidance document in simple language for health personnel, setting out their rights and responsibilities in conflict and other situations of violence. It explains how responsibilities and rights for health personnel can be derived from international humanitarian law, human rights law and medical e...thics.The document gives practical guidance on:
- The protection of health personnel, the sick and the wounded; - Standards of practice; - The health needs of particularly vulnerable people; - Health records and transmission of medical records; - "Imported" health care (including military health care);
- Data gathering and health personnel as witnesses to violations of international law; - Working with the media
more
As the culminating volume in the DCP3 series, volume 9 will provide an overview of DCP3 findings and methods, a summary of messages and substantive lessons to be taken from DCP3, and a further discussion of cross-cutting and synthesizing topics across the first eight volumes. The introductory chapte...rs (1-3) in this volume take as their starting point the elements of the Essential Packages presented in the overview chapters of each volume. First, the chapter on intersectoral policy priorities for health includes fiscal and intersectoral policies and assembles a subset of the population policies and applies strict criteria for a low-income setting in order to propose a "highest-priority" essential package. Second, the chapter on packages of care and delivery platforms for universal health coverage (UHC) includes health sector interventions, primarily clinical and public health services, and uses the same approach to propose a highest priority package of interventions and policies that meet similar criteria, provides cost estimates, and describes a pathway to UHC.
more
Ebola disease and Marburg disease outbreaks continue to occur in Africa, with increased frequency. In addition to resulting in high mortality and morbidity, the outbreaks generate fear and mistrust about the response activities within the communities affected.
Infection prevention and control (IP...C) is a key pillar in the outbreak response; adherence to IPC practices can prevent and control transmission of infections to health and care workers, patients and their family members.
During the 2014-2016 West African Ebola disease outbreak, there was an urgent need for rapid IPC guidance to help support ministries of health, health-care providers and non-governmental organizations (NGOs). In response, WHO produced several documents related to the outbreak based on expert opinion, including IPC-specific documents and documents on clinical management that also referenced key IPC principles and practices. Since that time, many practices in the field have become institutionalized.
more
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
This document seeks to help health communication professionals working on the topic of immunization more effectively communicate about Events Supposedly Attributed to Vaccination and Immunization (ESAVI) by building trust in National Immunization Programs, understanding risk perceptions related to v...accination, and responding to false information related to vaccination. It includes practical dos and don’ts regarding risk communication and community engagement processes and principles, messaging, risk perceptions, handling false information, collaborating with partners, and pharmacovigilance, as well as real-world examples.
more
Vol. 5, No. 3 - 2011 | The Quarterly provides summaries of the best available research evidence on a variety of children’s mental health topics, prepared using systematic review and synthesis methods adapted from the Cochrane Collaboration and Evidence-Based Mental Health. Our goal is to improve ...outcomes for children by informing policy and practice. The BC Ministry of Children and Family Development funds the Quarterly.
more
This Plan envisions a future with the elimination of cervical cancer as a public health problem as a result of universal access to sexual health and STI prevention services, HPV vaccines, effective screening and precancer treatment services, treatment of invasive cervical cancer, and palliative care.... It foresees that all women and girls, regardless of age, race, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, HIV status, or disability will have timely access to quality cervical cancer prevention, care, and treatment so that they can live in good health throughout the life course and enjoy the health-related human rights.
The goal is to accelerate progress toward the elimination of cervical cancer as a public health problem in the Americas by reducing incidence and mortality rates by one-third by 2030.
more
The EAPC White Paper addresses the issue of spiritual care education for all palliative care
professionals. It is to guide health care professionals involved in teaching or training of palliative care and spiritual care; stakeholders, leaders and decision makers responsible for training and educati...on; as well as national and local curricula development groups.
The EAPC white paper points out the importance of spiritual care as an integral part of palliative care and suggests incorporating it accordingly into educational activities and training models in palliative care. The revised spiritual care education competencies for all palliative care providers are accompanied by the best practice models and research evidence, at the same time being sensitive towards different develop-ment stages of the palliative care services across the European region.
Conclusions: Better education can help the healthcare practitioner to avoid being distracted by their own fears, prejudices, and restraints and attend to the patient and his/her family. This EAPC white paper encourages and facilitates high quality, multi-disciplinary, academically and financially accessible spiritual care education to all
palliative care staff.
more
. Interim Guidelines. This interim guideline lays out some basic principles of optimal nutritional care for adults and paediatric patients during treatment and convalescence in Ebola treatment units, community care centres or to other centres where Ebola patients are receiving care and support. It h...ighlights the key clinical problems in patients affected by Ebola virus disease (EVD) that may interfere with their nutritional status and overall clinical support in the context of the current Ebola crisis, and summarizes their nutritional needs. It does not provide specific advice on fluid management in cases of vomiting, diarrhoea and dehydration or parenteral nutrition
more
This purpose of this guide is to inform robust evaluations of the WHO training package – a package aimed at personnel whose primary role in health-care facilities is environmental cleaning, hereafter referred to as cleaners.
The WHO training package – Environmental cleaning and infection prev...ention and control in health-care facilities in low- and middle-income countries – was designed to improve the competencies of cleaners through a practical, educational approach for adult learners in low- and middle-income countries and comprises two volumes: trainer’s guide and modules and resources (1,2). An associated OpenWHO online course describes the essential preparations for trainers to deliver the WHO training package.
more
The objectives of these guidelines are to provide recommendations outlining a public health approach to managing people presenting with advanced HIV disease, and to provide guidance on the timing of initiation of antiretroviral therapy (ART) for all people living with HIV.
WHO recommends that a... package of screening, prophylaxis, rapid ART initiation and intensified adherence interventions be offered to everyone living with HIV presenting with advanced disease.
WHO strongly recommends that rapid ART initiation should be offered to people living with HIV following confirmed diagnosis and clinical assessment. Rapid initiation of ART is defined as within seven days of HIV diagnosis. WHO further strongly recommends ART initiation on the same day as HIV diagnosis based on the person’s willingness and readiness to start ART immediately, unless there are clinical reasons to delay treatment.
more
"Achieving, maintaining and improving accuracy, timeliness and reliability are major challenges for health laboratories. Countries worldwide committed themselves to build national capacities for the detection of, and response to, public health events of international concern when they decided to eng...age in the International Health Regulations implementation process. Only sound management of quality in health laboratories will enable countries to produce test results that the international community will trust in cases of international emergency. This handbook is intended to provide a comprehensive reference on Laboratory Quality Management System for all stakeholders in health laboratory processes, from management, to administration, to bench-work laboratorians. This handbook covers topics that are essential for quality management of a public health or clinical laboratory. They are based on both ISO 15189 and CLSI GP26-A3 documents"--Page 7.
more
This document describes the key areas that national governments should consider for the introduction and scale-up of point-of-care (POC) diagnostics within national programmes, as new innovative POC technologies are being introduced into the market. The next steps taken to include these new innovati...ons within the broader context of national diagnostic networks of conventional laboratories could influence the achievement of the 2030 Fast Track targets for ending the AIDS epidemic.
POC diagnostics, when strategically introduced and integrated into national diagnostic networks, may help catalyse changes that improve the way diagnostics and clinical services are delivered. This document distils this understanding based on programmatic and market experiences of introducing POC diagnostics through catalytic investments in POC HIV technologies across numerous countries in sub-Saharan Africa.
more
Recently, a renewed interest in large-scale community health worker (CHW) programs has been seen globally. This renewal provides an opportune moment to take stock of issues and challenges such programs face and what can be done to make them as effective as possible. With this in mind, this manual is... intended to be used a practical guide for policymakers and program
managers wishing to develop or strengthen a CHW program, drawing lessons from other countries that have implemented CHW programs at-scale. Throughout, we discuss major policy and programmatic issues that decision-makers and planners need to consider when designing, implementing, scaling up or strengthening a national-level CHW program. We offer an overview
of specific challenges CHW programs face, country lessons, tools, and other resources that may be helpful, while incorporating relevant programmatic examples as much as possible.
more
What are the FP and CAC competencies?
Through the clear articulation of the family planning and comprehensive abortion care (FP and CAC) competencies for the primary health care workforce, the aim is to advance improvements in FP and CAC service delivery by aligning health worker education approach...es with population health needs and health system demands.
This document, which describes these competencies in detail, is intended to:
be a foundational tool to be adopted and adapted by educators and regulators for FP and CAC providers (students) with a pre-service training pathway of at least 12 months;
describe competencies that are relevant to current and future health practice;
enable widespread use of the competencies not only for curriculum development for pre-service education, but also for in-service education, regulation, qualifications, quality assurance, personal development, performance evaluation, recruitment, management and career progression;
focus on the core functions of FP and CAC providers within broader efforts towards achieving universal health coverage
more