The COVID-19 pandemic has led to large increases in healthcare waste, straining under resourced healthcare facilities and exacerbating environmental impacts from solid waste. This report quantifies the additional COVID-19 healthcare waste generated, describes current healthcare waste management syst...ems and their deficiencies, and summarizes emerging best practices and solutions to reduce the impact of waste on human and environmental health. The recommendations included in the report build on actions in the WHO manifesto for a healthy recovery from COVID-19: prescriptions and actionables for a healthy and green recovery. They target the global, national and facility levels to promote a “win–win” scenario for COVID-19 PPE use, testing and vaccinations that are safe and support environmental sustainability.
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Anaemia is a serious global public health problem that particularly affects young children, menstruating adolescent girls and women, and pregnant and postpartum women. It is a condition in which the number of red blood cells or the haemoglobin concentration within them is lower than normal, affectin...g the blood’s ability to carry oxygen to the body’s tissues.
To reliably monitor the prevalence of anaemia at a population level, it is vital to measure the haemoglobin concentration in an accurate and precise way. In large-scale surveys, however, haemoglobin is most commonly measured using single-drop capillary blood specimens in point-of-care devices. Emerging evidence suggests that the use of single-drop capillary blood can introduce random and/or systematic errors, which may lead to inaccurate estimates, complicating effective anaemia programming.
This technical brief describes the current best practices for haemoglobin measurement, providing guidance to help plan or implement field surveys to assess anaemia at a population level. Continuing work to review emerging evidence is led by members of the WHO-UNICEF Technical Expert Advisory group on nutrition Monitoring (TEAM).
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SARS-CoV-2 infections among children and adolescents cause less severe illness and fewer deaths compared to adults. While a less severe course of infection is a positive outcome, there are concerns that mild symptoms may have led to less testing, resulting in fewer identified cases of COVID-19 in ch...ildren. If children with mild or no symptoms transmit the disease, they may act as drivers of transmission within their communities. Understanding symptoms, infectivity and patterns of SARS-CoV-2 transmission in children and adolescents is essential for developing, adapting and improving control measures for COVID-19 across all ages. This is a summary of the current knowledge around SARS-CoV-2 infection acquisition and transmission and COVID-19 disease symptoms in children and adolescents. It aims to inform decisions, based on local contexts, on how to best keep schools, kindergarten and day-care facilities open and what advice to apply to intergenerational mixing.
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Antimicrobials are widely used in food animal production, and use is rapidly increasing.
In an era of growing demand for animal products, there is an increasing trend towards the industrial production of food animals, especially in lower- and middle-income countries (LMICs). One hallmark of this me...thod of animal production is the
use of antimicrobial drugs, which in the majority of cases are administered to healthy animals for purposes other than
treating or controlling disease (termed “therapeutic uses”)
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13 May 2021
To avoid a reversal of progress from the adverse impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, new knowledge and lessons from successful programmatic innovations are urgently needed to improve TB prevention and care. Experience can provide evidence for innovative approaches and strategies to mainta...in and scale up high-quality TB services. WHO therefore called for case studies on programmatic innovations that address emerging challenges in TB prevention and care during the pandemic in order to collect and disseminate the findings to the TB community. Between November 2020 and February 2021, a total of 23 case studies relevant to the call were accepted from 19 countries in the six regions of WHO. The lessons learnt from these country activities to ensure the continuity of essential services like TB care in the face of the crippling crisis may also inform strategies for minimizing the impact of future emerging pathogens on health services.
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This Eye health strategic plan presents the Ministry of Health’s five
year proposed strategies for eye care in Kenya. It sets the strategic
direction for the National Eye Health Care System and presents
information on the priorities, objectives and indicators that the
Ministry has adopted espe...cially with regard to the main eye diseases
and conditions in the country and health system strengthening.
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Primary health care offers a cost–effective route to achieving universal health coverage (UHC). However, primary health-care systems are weak in many low- and middle-income countries and often fail to provide comprehensive, people-centred, integrated care. We analysed the primar...y health-care systems in 20 low- and middle-income countries using a semi-grounded approach. Options for strengthening primary health-care systems were identified by thematic content analysis. We found that: (i)despite the growing burden of noncommunicable disease, many low- and middle-income countries lacked funds for preventive services; (ii)community health workers were often under-resourced, poorly supported and lacked training; (iii)out-of-pocket expenditure exceeded 40% of total health expenditure in half the countries studied, which affected equity; and (iv)health insurance schemes were hampered by the fragmentation of public and private systems, underfunding, corruption and poor engagement of informal workers. In 14 countries, the private sector was largely unregulated. Moreover, community engagement in primary health care was weak in countries where services were largely privatized. In some countries, decentralization led to the fragmentation of primary health care. Performance improved when financial incentives were linked to regulation and quality improvement, and community involvement was strong. Policy-making should be supported by adequate resources for primary health-care implementation and government spending on primary health care should be increased by at least 1% of gross domestic product. Devising equity-enhancing financing schemes and improving the accountability of primary health-care management is also needed. Support from primary health-care systems is critical for progress towards UHC in the decade to 2030.
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This report summarizes the latest scientific knowledge on the links between exposure to air pollution and adverse health effects in children. It is intended to inform and motivate individual and collective action by health care professionals to prevent damage to children’s health from exposure to ...air pollution.
Air pollution is a major environmental health threat. Exposure to fine particles in both the ambient environment and in the household causes about seven million premature deaths each year. Ambient air pollution alone imposes enormous costs on the global economy, amounting to more than US$ 5 trillion in total welfare losses in 2013.
This public health crisis is receiving more attention, but one critical aspect is often overlooked: how air pollution affects children in uniquely damaging ways. Recent data released by the World Health Organization (WHO) show that air pollution has a vast and terrible impact on child health and survival. Globally, 93% of all children live in environments with air pollution levels above the WHO guidelines (see the full report, Air pollution and child health: prescribing clean air. More than one in every four deaths of children under 5 years of age is directly or indirectly related to environmental risks. Both ambient air pollution and household air pollution contribute to respiratory tract infections that resulted in 543 000 deaths in children under the age of 5 years in 2016.
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The purpose of the PAS III is to guide Pakistan’s overall national response for HIV and AIDS through 2020, through focused interventions with set targets, costs, roles and responsibilities. The successful implementation of PAS III involves multiple stakeholders to achieve priority outcomes outline...d in the Strategy. The Strategy focuses on allocating limited resources to scale up high-impact, high-value interventions such as HTC and treatment to reduce AIDS related deaths and new HIV infections. Priorities in the PAS III have been identified to ensure maximum impact in reducing new infections, especially among key populations, improving treatment uptake and retention, and improving the quality of life of people living with HIV and AIDS in the context of limited financial and human resources.
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Since the release of the first volume in May 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic has continued to rage around the world. By mid-March, 2021, countries around the globe had reported over 123 million cases—a nearly five-fold increase since this report’s previous volume—and over 2.7 million deaths attrib...uted to the disease. And while new case loads are currently on the rise again, the global health community has already administered almost 400 million doses of vaccines, at last offering some signs of hope and progress.
Economic impacts threaten to undo decades of recent progress in poverty reduction, child nutrition and gender equality, and exacerbate efforts to support refugees, migrants, and other vulnerable communities. National and local governments—together with international and private-sector partners—must deploy vaccines as efficiently, safely and equitably as possible while still monitoring for new outbreaks and continuing policies to protect those who do not yet have immunity.
More than ever, the world needs reliable and trustworthy data and statistics to inform these important decisions. The United Nations and all member organizations of the Committee for the Coordination of Statistical Activities (CCSA) collect and make available a wealth of information for assessing the multifaceted impacts of the pandemic. This report updates some of the global and regional trends presented in Volume I and offers a snapshot of how COVID-19 continues to affect the world today across multiple domains.
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Ce document d'orientation est destiné aux cliniciens qui s'occupent de patients atteints de COVID-19 à toutes les phases de leur maladie (c'est-à-dire du dépistage à la sortie de l'hôpital). Cette mise à jour a été étendue pour répondre aux besoins des cliniciens de première ligne et fa...vorise une approche multidisciplinaire des soins aux patients atteints de COVID-19, y compris ceux qui présentent une maladie légère, modérée, grave et critique. Les sections suivantes sont entièrement nouvelles : parcours de soins COVID-19, traitement des infections aiguës et chroniques, gestion des manifestations neurologiques et mentales, maladies non transmissibles, réadaptation, soins palliatifs, principes éthiques et déclaration du décès ; les chapitres précédents ont également été considérablement étoffés.
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In response to COVID-19, countries around the world have implemented several public health and social measures (PHSM), such as movement restrictions, closure of schools and businesses, and international travel restrictions.1 As the local epidemiology of the disease changes, countries will adjust (i....e. loosen or reinstate) these measures according to the intensity of transmission.
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L'anthrax est une maladie bactérienne, causée par Bacillus anthracis, qui peut se transmettre des animaux
herbivores à l'homme par contact étroit, en mangeant de la viande d'animaux infectés, ou par contamination
environnementale. L'anthrax peut être une maladie grave nécessitant un diagnos...tic et un traitement précoces
pour éviter une issue fatale, un handicap ou une charge financière pour les patients et leurs familles. e. La
maladie affecte également le bien-être de l'homme lorsque le bétail constitue son moyen de subsistance et
un élément important de la pratique agricole. La prévention est un mayen efficace de lutte contre la maladie.
Ces observations fournissent des données sur la survenue des cas d’anthrax dans les communes de Alafia
et Douekiré dans la région de Tombouctou ; les caractéristiques des populations et la description de la zone
en appliquant une approche One Health et la vaccination du cheptel. L’objectif était de Vacciner au moins
80% du cheptel identifié des communes de Alafia dans le cercle de Tombouctou, et de Douekiré dans le
cercle Goundam contre le charbon bactéridien afin de prévenir une épizootie de pathologie infectieuse
zoonotique.
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Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is a global human, animal, plant and environment health threat that needs to be addressed by every country. The impacts of AMR are wide-ranging in terms of human health, animal health, food security and safety, environmental effects on ecosystems and biodiversity, and ...socioeconomic development. Just like the climate crisis, AMR poses a significant threat to the delivery of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. The response to the AMR crisis has been spearheaded through the global action plan on antimicrobial resistance (GAP-AMR), developed by the World Health Organization (WHO) in 2015, in close collaboration with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the World Organisation for Animal Health (WOAH), and formally endorsed by the three organizations’ governing bodies and by the Political Declaration of the high-level meeting of the United Nations General Assembly on AMR in 2016. In 2022, the three organizations officially became the Quadripartite by welcoming the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) into the alliance “to accelerate coordination strategy on human, animal and ecosystem health”.
The aim of the GAP-AMR is to ensure the continuity of successful treatment with effective and safe medicines.
Its strategic objectives include:
• improving the awareness and understanding of AMR;
• strengthening the knowledge and evidence base through surveillance and research;
• reducing the incidence of infection through effective sanitation, hygiene and infection prevention measures; optimizing the use of antimicrobial medicines in human and animal health; and
• developing the economic case for sustainable investment that takes account of the needs of all countries and increasing investment in new medicines, diagnostic tools, vaccines and other interventions.
With the adoption of the GAP-AMR, countries agreed to develop national action plans (NAPs) aligned with the GAP-AMR to mainstream AMR interventions nationally. Individually, the Quadripartite took action to advance AMR interventions in their respective sectors. FAO adopted a resolution on AMR recognizing that it poses an increasingly serious threat to public health and sustainable food production, and developed an AMR action plan to support the resolution’s implementation. For its part, WOAH developed a strategy on AMR aligned with the GAP-AMR, acknowledging the importance of a One Health approach to AMR. Similarly, more recently, UNEP’s governing body, the United Nations Environment Assembly, recognized that AMR is a current and increasing threat and a challenge to global health, food security and the sustainable development of all countries, and welcomed the GAP-AMR and the NAPs developed in accordance with its five overarching strategic objectives
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The Malaria Ministerial Conference, co-hosted by WHO and the Government of Cameroon on 6 March 2024, brought together more than 400 stakeholders, including Ministers of Health and senior representatives from the African countries hardest hit by malaria, global health leaders, scientists, civil socie...ty and other partners. The pivotal meeting sought to leverage political commitment, scientific innovation and community engagement to reshape the trajectory of malaria control in high burden African countries, and beyond.
At the end of the meeting and in the weeks that followed, Ministers of Health from the 11 “High Burden High Impact” African countries (Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ghana, Mali, Mozambique, Niger, Nigeria, Sudan, Uganda and United Republic of Tanzania) signed the Yaoundé Declaration, pledging their “unwavering commitment” to the principle that “no one should die from malaria given the tools and systems available.” Success in reducing malaria morbidity and mortality will hinge on efforts by countries to translate this political commitment into actions and resources that will save lives.
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Revised and expanded version of the Guidelines
The document titled "Fason pou Gen Laviktwa sou Kolera" (How to Achieve Victory over Cholera) provides comprehensive guidelines on the clinical presentation and management of cholera, particularly in the context of the 2010 Haiti outbreak. It emphasizes rapid rehydration as a lifesaving measure, det...ailing protocols for both oral rehydration solutions (ORS) and intravenous (IV) fluids. The document outlines appropriate antibiotic treatments based on patient categories, underscores the importance of proper sanitation, and offers strategies for effective outbreak control. Additionally, it provides guidance on recognizing severe dehydration and the necessity of immediate medical intervention to reduce mortality associated with cholera.
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Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A v.110(21); 2013 May 21 PMC3666729 ;
A systematic review was conducted by a multidisciplinary team to analyze qualitatively best available scientific evidence on the effect of agricultural intensification and environmental changes on the risk of zoonoses for which there are... epidemiological interactions between wildlife and livestock.
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