Our aim is to review current asthma epidemiology, achievements from the last 10 years, and persistent challenges of asthma man- agement and control in low-middle income countries (LMICs). Despite global efforts, asthma continues to be an important public health problem worldwide, particularly in poo...rly resourced settings. Several epidemiological studies in the last decades have shown significant variability in the prevalence of asthma globally, but generally a marked increase in LMICs resulting in significant mor- bidity and mortality. Poverty, air pollution, climate change, exposure to indoor allergens, urbanization and diet are some of the factors that contribute to inadequate control and poor outcomes in developing countries. Although asthma guidelines have been developed to raise awareness and improve asthma diagnosis and treatment, problems with underdiagnosis and undertreatment are still common. In addition, important social, financial, cultural and healthcare barriers are common obstacles in LMICs in achieving control. Given the high burden of asthma in these countries, adaptation and implementation of national asthma guidelines tailored to local needs should be a public health priority. Governmental commitment, education, better health system infrastructure, access to care and effective asthma medications are the cornerstone of achieving success.
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The article "The burden of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and its attributable risk factors in the Middle East and North Africa region, 1990–2019" provides an analysis of the prevalence, mortality, and disability-adjusted life-years (DALYs) due to COPD in the MENA region from 1990 to 2019. ...The study uses data from the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) 2019 and shows that while age-standardized death and DALY rates have decreased over 30 years, COPD remains a significant health issue, especially among older populations. The main risk factors identified are smoking, ambient particulate pollution, and occupational exposure. The research underscores the impact of socioeconomic factors and recommends targeted public health initiatives to reduce the burden.
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Chagas disease is a zoonosis caused by the protozoa Trypanosoma cruzi. It is transmitted to humans by contact of triatomine bug faeces with a break in the skin (often caused by a bite from the triatomine bug), or with mucous membranes. Transmission by contaminated blood transfusion, accidental expos...ure to blood, mother-to-child (during pregnancy or childbirth) or consumption of contaminated food and water is also possible.
Chagas disease has two phases: an acute phase, which lasts approximately 4 to 6 weeks, and a chronic phase, which is lifelong if left untreated.
The disease is primarily found on the American continent. It is significantly underdiagnosed.
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Salut materno infanto juvenil en cifras este nuevo boletín, elaborado a partir de
datos oficiales proporcionados por la Dirección de Estadísticas e Información en
Salud del Ministerio de Salud de la Nación (MSN) y el Instituto Nacional de Estadística y Censos (INDEC), refleja las cifras so...bre hechos vitales y morbilidad infanto-juvenil
en el territorio nacional. Constituye una fuente de información esencial que contiene indicadores significativos para medir el desarrollo social, la situación de la infancia y el sistema de salud del país.
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This report reviews and analyses the Affordable Medicines Programme, which was introduced in Ukraine in April 2017 to provide patients with improved access to 23 outpatient medicines for the treatment of chronic noncommunicable diseases. The evaluation combines both quantitative and qualitative anal...ysis. The findings confirm that the Programme has contributed to a significant increase in access to needed outpatient medicines in Ukraine. Further, while implementation was successful overall, uptake across regions was uneven. The report concludes by listing a number of policy options to support the sustainability and expansion of the Affordable Medicines Programme.
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Work can be beneficial or harmful to mental health depending on
the circumstances. If a person has a mental health problem, being
at work in a supportive workplace can assist in their recovery. The
level of support needed will fluctuate, as the symptoms of most
mental health problems come and go... over time.
Providing mental health first aid when a worker is showing the
early signs and symptoms of a mental health problem is important,
as it can assist the person to return to their usual performance
quickly. Failing to provide mental health first
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The thirty-seventh meeting of the Programme, Budget and Administration Committee was held in Geneva from 25 to 27 January 2023 and chaired by Ms Aishath Rishmee (Maldives). The Committee adopted its agenda and agreed its programme of work. In his opening remarks, the Director-General emphasized the ...crucial work on the financial future of the Organization, most significantly implementation of the Programme budget 2022−2023 and development of the Proposed programme budget 2024−2025, which would be the first to benefit from the agreed increase in assessed contributions. He welcomed the work of the Agile Member States Task Group on Strengthening WHO’s Budgetary, Programmatic and Financing Governance with its recommendations for long-term improvements in reform, prevention of and response to sexual abuse and harassment, new web-based information portals and a new replenishment process for consideration by Member States. Efforts were also under way to improve impact at country level, and he would continue to report to Member States on progress. He was heading an agile, proactive and fast-responding WHO, committed to implementing plans approved by Member States.
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This Rapid Gender Analysis provides preliminary information and observations on the different needs, capacities and coping strategies of Venezuelan migrant and refugee women, men, boys, and girls in Colombia. It seeks to understand how gender roles and relations have changed as a result of the crisi...s and share recommendations for how the humanitarian community can more effectively consider these changing dynamics to better meet the different needs of women, men, boys and girls of different ages, abilities and other contextually relevant forms of diversity. The refugee and migrant crisis in Colombia is characterized by gendered dynamics and has taken a significant toll on the health and welfare on all those affected, but particularly on women and girls. Refugee and migrant women and girls face profound vulnerabilities as they leave Venezuela and either cross Colombia or stay in various locations across the country; this is even more the case for those at increased risk, such as indigenous populations, adolescent girls, etc.
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JE, MTOTO WAKO NI MGONJWA? MUDA MREFU FILAMU - KUHARISHA, NYUMONIA, MALARIA
This film is the full length version of the Is Your Child Sick? videos on pneumonia, diarrhoea and malaria. The film is aimed at community health workers, parents and communities to teach them the important signs and symp...toms to look for in a sick child and why they need to make sure they seek help as early as possible from a skilled health worker.
Accessed 29 January 2015
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El presente informe incluye análisis de consultas informales en cinco de las regiones de la OMS: la Región de África, la Región de las Américas (donde se realizaron consultas separadas para el Caribe y América del Norte, y para América Latina), la Región de Asia Sudoriental, la Región de Eu...ropa y la Región del Mediterráneo Oriental, junto con tres foros en la Región del Pacífico Occidental. Se analizan las similitudes generales, los matices regionales y las prioridades planteadas en las seis regiones de la OMS para la participación significativa de las personas con experiencias vividas.
El presente informe es la segunda publicación de la serie «De la intención a la acción», un conjunto de recursos destinados a mejorar la limitada base de evidencia sobre el impacto de la participación significativa y abordar la falta de enfoques normalizados sobre cómo hacer operativa esta participación. La serie «De la intención a la acción» pretende llevar esto a cabo proporcionando una plataforma desde la que las personas con experiencias vividas, y los defensores de organizaciones e instituciones, puedan compartir soluciones, retos y prácticas prometedoras relacionadas con esta agenda transversal. La serie «De la intención a la acción» también tiene como objetivo proporcionar poderosas historias, inspiración y evidencia para la 4.ª Reunión de Alto Nivel de las Naciones Unidas sobre las ENT que se celebrará en 2025 y la consecución de los Objetivos de Desarrollo Sostenible (ODS) de las Naciones Unidas para 2030.
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A large meta-analysis of observational studies that provided the basis for the recent makeover of global recommendations for multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) treatment shows that newer and repurposed drugs produced better outcomes and fewer deaths than older treatments.
The meta-analysis... of 50 studies involving 12,000 patients from 25 countries, published yesterday in The Lancet, found that bedaquiline, linezolid, levofloxacin, and moxifloxacin were associated with greater treatment success and reduced mortality compared with the previously recommended first-line treatments, while clofazimine and carbapenem antibiotics were associated with significantly improved treatment outcomes (but not reduced mortality)
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Myanmar, as a country going through rapid socio-political transition and institutional development also suffers with a high burden of infectious disease. An ongoing challenge has been to effectively reach its 51 million population, most of whom battle tuberculosis, acute respiratory infections, diar...rhoea and malaria including amongst under-five children.
Limited research data on the occurrence of resistant organisms in the nation have, makes it hard to estimate the exact antimicrobial resistance (AMR) scenario. Limited peer reviewed evidence indicates significant divergence from the average resistance trends in APAC region. Nevertheless, several key steps by Government of Myanmar have been instrumental in paving the way for the country to join other nations in the South East Asia Region to speed up its plan on addressing the AMR crisis. Combating antimicrobial resistance would, however, require highest political commitment, multi-sectoral coordination, sustained investment and technical assistance.
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Prompt, effective antimalarial treatment, and supportive care can substantially reduce the rate of mortality from severe malaria. However, many children in malaria-endemic countries do not have access to health facilities or a qualified health care provider and do not receive the necessary care in a... timely fashion. Without rapid detection of danger signs and access to effective treatment, including pre-referral treatment that can be administered in the community level, many of these children with severe malaria die.
In situations where there is no immediate access to a health care facility, WHO recommends the administration of a standard dose of an effective antimalarial medicine as pre-referral treatment before referral to a facility at which complete treatment can be administered.
Rectal artesunate is the WHO-recommended pre-referral intervention in situations where artesunate injection are not feasible for children under the age of 6 years with suspected severe malaria. The intervention reduces the risk of death or permanent disability by up to 50% provided the child is referred to a health facility at which complete treatment can be administered.
This field guide is aimed at supporting the effective deployment of RAS as pre-referral treatment of suspected severe malaria in line with the WHO malaria guidelines.
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The strategy recommends that AU Member States should enhance, where feasible, existing COVID-19 surveillance to include:
Community-based surveillance to detect symptomatic cases early for treatment and to avert viral transmission;
Sentinel surveillance in high-risk populations to detect ...and track both presymptomatic and asymptomatic cases; and
Wastewater surveillance to monitor early environmental signs of virus transmission and identify communities where targeted interventions can be implemented to decrease transmission.
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The "Hygiene Awareness Manual" focuses on promoting improved hygiene practices within communities, emphasizing personal and household hygiene, water safety, and environmental health. It highlights the importance of handwashing, oral hygiene, and maintaining cleanliness of the skin and clothing as ke...y aspects of personal and family hygiene. Specific practices such as regular bathing and wearing clean clothes are also emphasized.
For household hygiene, the manual provides guidance on safe food preparation and storage, as well as keeping living spaces, kitchens, and latrines clean to prevent contamination. It also addresses water safety, emphasizing the need to store water in clean containers, treat it for safe consumption, and dispose of wastewater properly to avoid environmental contamination.
The manual underscores the significance of balanced nutrition and food safety, offering guidelines for cooking and preserving food to reduce health risks. It also delves into disease prevention, explaining the causes and transmission of waterborne and hygiene-related diseases, such as cholera and dysentery, and outlining effective methods to prevent them through proper sanitation and hygiene.
This comprehensive guide serves as a practical resource for community health workers and households, aiming to foster better hygiene practices, prevent diseases, and enhance overall health and well-being.
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Março de 2020
O número de Estados Membros da União Africana a reportarem
casos do COVID-19 está a aumentar e existe uma probabilidade de transmissão comunitária. A OMS modificou recentemente a definição
de caso suspeito do COVID-19, de modo a incluir infecção respiratória aguda grave... e aconselha a testagem de todos os casos de doença respiratória aguda grave (SARI).1 Contudo, muitos Estados Membros ainda não começaram a implementar estas alterações, pois ainda estão a concentrar os esforços na vigilância de indivíduos com histórico de viagem para uma área com transmissão local do COVID-19. Isto significa que os doentes com sintomas semelhantes, mas sem contacto aparente, podem não ser investigados.
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Yaya et al. BMC Pregnancy and Childbirth (2018) 18:194
Ensuring equitable access to maternal health care including antenatal, delivery, postnatal services
and fertility control methods, is one of the most critical challenges for public health sector. There are significant
disparities in materna...l health care indicators across many geographical locations, maternal, economic, sociodemographic
factors in many countries in sub-Sahara Africa. In this study, we comparatively explored the utilization
level of maternal health care, and examined disparities in the determinants of major maternal health outcomes
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This paper outlines the background to and design of the Health Financing Progress Matrix (HFPM), WHO’s standardized qualitative approach to assessing country health financing systems. Primarily qualitative in nature, the HFPM assesses a country’s health financing institutions, processes, policie...s and their implementation, benchmarked against good practice in the context of universal health coverage (UHC). The paper also details processes which ensure that country assessments are credible. While health financing is only one of the core functions of a health system, it significantly influences both the extent to which the population accesses health services, and the extent to which they face financial hardship in the process. Through a forward-looking assessment process the HFPM contributes to building resilience within health systems, which also contributes directly to improved emergency preparedness and response.
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In the year 2008, for the first time in history, more than half of the world’s population was living in urban areas. Cities have become more numerous, more populous, and denser. The complexity and density of urban environments significantly alter the viability of certain humanitarian protection st...rategies that might work well in rural, more sparsely populated areas. In addition, it has become difficult to draw the line between acute and chronic vulnerability and therefore, the identification of beneficiaries. This blur in distinction between chronic and acute vulnerability has raised a number of important questions for humanitarian organizations regarding if and how they should intervene. While many such organizations are equipped with the appropriate skills to mitigate overwhelming public health challenges is such contexts, the absence of a crisis point - such as armed conflict or natural disaster - brings the mandate of humanitarian agencies into question.
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This report investigates the impact of potential misclassification of samples on HIV prevalence estimates for 23 surveys conducted from 2010-2014. In addition to visual inspection of laboratory results, we examined how accounting for potential misclassification of HIV status through Bayesian latent ...class models affected the prevalence estimates. Two types of Bayesian models were specified: a model that only uses the individual dichotomous test results and a continuous model that uses the quantitative information of the EIA (i.e., the signal-to-cutoff values). Overall, we found that adjusted prevalence estimates matched the surveys’ original results, with overlapping uncertainty intervals. This suggested that misclassification of HIV status should not affect the prevalence estimates in most surveys. However, our analyses suggested that two surveys may be problematic. The prevalence could have been overestimated in the Uganda AIDS Indicator Survey 2011 and the Zambia Demographic and Health Survey 2013-14, although the magnitude of overestimation remains difficult to ascertain. Interpreting results from the Uganda survey is difficult because of the lack of internal quality control and potential violation of the multivariate normality assumption of the continuous Bayesian latent class model. In conclusion, despite the limitations of our latent class models, our analyses suggest that prevalence estimates from most of the surveys reviewed are not affected by sample misclassification.
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