This guidance is intended to be one stop shop to improve the quality and effectiveness of health interventions in emergency, to respond to the most frequent scenarios and conditions.
The main document contains the most common elements to be found in emergencies. As much as possible they are one pag...e tables on one topic each with the key elements that ensure quality in column 2 of the table. Column 1 is about key information. Column 3 contains suggested indicators and column 4 helps decision making. This is a document to consult as needed, not really to read from front to last page
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This report aims to support countries in the necessary transition toward healthier, more sustainable diets by integrating biodiversity in food-based interventions to support nutrition and health. It is intended to help guide decision-makers in the health, nutrition and other sectors, to:
Consider... the important role of biodiversity in food systems for the development of integrated interventions to support healthy, diverse and sustainable diets;
To focus investments and country support for more comprehensive, coordinated and cross-cutting public health and nutrition projects and policies; and
To strengthen the resilience of food systems, health systems, and societies, each of which are each increasingly compromised by widespread ecological degradation, biodiversity loss and climate change.
Biodiversity at every level (genetic, species and ecosystem level) is a foundational pillar for food security, nutrition, and dietary quality. It is the basic source of variety in essential foods, nutrients, vitamins and minerals, and medicines, and underpins life-sustaining ecosystem services. It is a core environmental determinant of health, often a vital ingredient of healthy nutritional outcomes and livelihoods, gender equality, social equity, and other health determinants.
Biodiversity can play a more prominent role in planning for nutritional outcomes in various ways, e.g. by facilitating the production of nutritious fruits and plant products, sustaining livelihoods through more efficient production and increasing the diversity of products available in markets. This Guidance presents and expands on six core building blocks for mainstreaming biodiversity for nutrition and health:
Cross-sectoral knowledge development and knowledge co-production;
Enabling environments;
Integration;
Conservation and the wider use of biodiversity;
Education and awareness-raising;
Monitoring and evaluation;
This WHO report builds on an unprecedented opportunity to mainstream biodiversity in order to support healthy and sustainable diets, and offers the necessary technical guidance to catalyze and support a transformation of the global food system and transition to healthier, more sustainable diets.
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This revised and fully updated edition of the
International technical guidance on sexuality education
benefits from a new review of the current evidence, and reaffirms the position of sexuality education within a framework of human rights and gender equality. It promotes structured learning about... sex and relationships in a manner that is positive, affirming, and centered on the best interest of the young person. By outlining the essential components of effective sexuality education programmes, the Guidance enables national authorities to design comprehensive curricula that will have a positive impact on young people’s health and well-being.
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Case management is an approach at the core of social work. Case management is the process required for improving the quality of life for vulnerable children in need of care and protection. This manual is intended to support social workers in their case management role and reduce overall workload by ...ensuring case management processes are conducted efficiently with best outcomes for children.
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The aim of this guidance is to enhance the capacity of health care facilities to protect and improve the health of their target communities in an unstable and changing climate; and to empower health care facilities to be environmentally sustainable, by optimizing the use of resources and minimizing ...the release of waste into the environment. Climate resilient and environmentally sustainable health care facilities contribute to high quality of care and accessibility of services, and by helping reduce facility costs also ensure better affordability. They are, therefore, an important component of universal health coverage (UHC).
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Current evidence that the climate is changing is overwhelming. Impacts of climate change and variability are being observed: more intense heat-waves, fires and floods; and increased prevalence of food- water- and vector-borne diseases. Climate change will put pressure on environmental and health det...erminants, such as food safety, air pollution and water quantity and quality. A climate-resilient future depends fundamentally on reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Limiting warming to below 2 °C requires transformational technological, institutional, political and behavioural changes: the foundations for this are laid out in the Paris Agreement of December 2015. The health sector can lead by example, shifting to environmentally friendly practices and minimizing its carbon emissions. A climate-resilient future will increasingly depend on managing and reducing climate change risks to protect health. In the near term, this can be enhanced by including climate change in national health programming and creating climate-resilient health systems.
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The WHO Global Antimicrobial Resistance and Use Surveillance System (GLASS) was launched in 2015 to foster AMR surveillance and inform strategies to contain AMR. The system started with surveillance of AMR in bacteria causing common human infections and has expanded its scope to include surveillance... of antimicrobial consumption (AMC), invasive fungal infections, and a One Health surveillance model relevant to human health. To meet future challenges, it is in continuous evolution to enhance the quality and representativeness of data to inform the AMR burden accurately. As of the end of 2022, 127 countries, territories and areas participate in GLASS.
The fifth GLASS report, produced in collaboration with Member States, summarizes 2020 data on AMR rates in common bacteria from countries, territories, and areas. The report brings new features, including analyses of population testing coverage or AMR trends. For the first time, the report presents 2020 data on AMC at the national level. A new interactive dashboard allow users to explore AMR and AMC global data, country profiles and download the data.
This report marks the end of the early implementation phase of GLASS. In addition to presenting data collected through the latest data call, this report provides a summary of five years of national AMR surveillance data contributed to GLASS from its initiation, presents AMR findings in the context of progress of country participation in GLASS and in global AMR surveillance coverage and laboratory quality assurance systems at (sub)national level.
Patterns of antimicrobial consumption are presented by country with a particular focus on antibacterials. The report also presents the antimicrobial consumption according to the WHO AWaRe antibiotic classification, for penicillins and cephalosporines. From a One Health perspective, the report presents antimicrobial consumption data in the human sector expressed in tons to allow a comparison with antimicrobial consumption from other sectors (not included in this report).
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Burkina Faso remains one of the poorest countries in the world, with 44.5% of the population living below the poverty line. To promote the rights of persons with disabilities, the country has adopted almost all of the relevant initiatives and international legal texts on the rights of persons with d...isabilities including the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) that was ratified in 2009. The country has also adopted a National Strategy for the Protection and Promotion of Persons with Disabilities (SN-3PH, 2012), based on, amongst other approaches, Community Based Rehabilitation (CBR), promoted by the WHO and LIGHT FOR THE WORLD. Following on from the 2011-2015 country strategy that enabled LIGHT FOR THE WORLD to contribute strongly to the national dialogue on disability, the present strategy 2016-2020 aims to strengthen our achievements in order to work towards an inclusive society in which persons with disabilities fully enjoy their rights.
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The primary audience for these recommendations includes health professionals who are responsible for developing national and local health-care guidelines and protocols and health workers involved in the provision of care to women and their newborns during pregnancy, labour and childbirth; this inclu...des midwives, nurses, general medical practitioners and obstetricians. The primary audience also includes managers of maternal and child health programmes, and relevant staff in ministries of health and educational and training institutions, in all settings.
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Background paper for the Oslo Summit on Education for Development.
This paper covers the four topics of the Oslo Summit: investment in education, quality of learning, education in emergencies and girls’ education. Disability continues to be one of the primary causes of educational disadvantage a...nd exclusion,
creating the largest single group of girls and boys who remain out of school. Even in those countries
close to achieving universal primary enrolment, children with disabilities are still not in school,accessing opportunities to meaningful employment and on sustainable routes out of poverty
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The main objectives of these guidelines are to:
1. contribute to the quality assurance of medicinal plant materials used as the source for herbal medicines to improve the quality, safety and efficacy of finished herbal products;
2. guide the formulation of national and/or regional GACP guideli...nes and GACP monographs for medicinal plants and related standard operating procedures; and
3. encourage and support the sustainable cultivation and collection of medicinal plants of good quality in ways that respect and support the conservation of medicinal plants and the environment in general.
These guidelines concern the cultivation and collection of medicinal plants and include certain post-harvest operations.
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Webinar.
The purpose of this booklet is to help readers understand why data on children with disabilities are currently inadequate, the difficulties that surround the gathering of high-quality data on disabled children, and why there is a real need to improve the collection, analysis, dissemination... and use of disability data.
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HIV testing programmes need to ensure that all clients who test for HIV are provided with correct diagnoses. The accuracy of HIV testing is critical to prevent misdiagnosis, as the consequences of giving an incorrect test result can be serious for clients, HIV testing services, HIV programmes and pu...blic health.
With the evolution of global HIV epidemiology, HIV testing approaches must also evolve to maintain accuracy and efficiency in population-level diagnosis. Reports suggest that misdiagnosis of HIV status may occur when suboptimal testing algorithms and out-of-date testing strategies are used. As a result of changing epidemiology and declining HIV positivity in testing, WHO recommends all countries use a standard three-test strategy to ensure a PPV of at least 99%, minimizing false-positive misdiagnosis. The WHO-recommended HIV testing strategy, along with quality assurance measures such as retesting to verify a positive diagnosis prior to initiation of HIV treatment, is cost-effective as it prevents misdiagnosis and unnecessary initiation of costly lifelong treatment.
This implementation guide provides practical advice on switching to a three-test strategy and instituting other measures that can help national HIV programmes deliver high-quality, accurate HIV testing services and ensure that misdiagnosis is minimized.
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This policy paper underscores that, although children do not represent a high-risk group for direct COVID-19 fatality, the pandemic posts far-reaching secondary impacts that heighten risks to African children’s rights and wellbeing.
The State of the World’s Children 2013: Children with Disabilities examines the barriers – from inaccessible buildings to dismissive attitudes, from invisibility in official statistics to vicious discrimination – that deprive children with disabilities of their rights and keep them from partic...ipating fully in society. The report also lays out some of the key elements of inclusive societies that respect and protect the rights of all children, regardless of disability, and progress in helping all children to flourish and make their contribution to the world.
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A practical toolkit for young people who are passionate about advancing HIV and sexual and reproductive health and rights through national advocacy in the post-2015 agenda.
Access to safe blood and blood products is recognized as one of the key requirements for delivery of modern health care in the journey towards health for all. The foundation of safe and sustainable blood supplies depends on the collection of blood from voluntary non-remunerated and low-risk donors. ...Data from the WHO Global Database for Blood Safety (GDBS) brings out several inadequacies related to the supply and safety of blood and blood products. These inadequacies include a number of variations in safe blood practices across the world, including the quantity of blood donated (voluntary and replacement types), quality and adequate testing of the donated blood (immunohaematology [IH] and transfusion-transmitted infections [TTIs]), rational use of blood and blood components such as appropriate patient blood management protocols. These variations are very high in countries of the South-East Asian Region and most of them are either low- or middle-income countries (LMICs).
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The recommendations in this guideline are intended to inform development of national and subnational health policies, clinical protocols and programmatic guides. The target audience includes national and subnational public health policy-makers, implementers and managers of maternal, newborn and chil...d health programmes, health-care facility managers, supervisors/instructors for in-service training, health workers (including midwives, auxiliary nurse-midwives, nurses, paediatricians, neonatologists, general medical practitioners and community health workers), nongovernmental organizations, professional societies involved in the planning and management of maternal, newborn and child health services, academic staff involved in research and in the pre-service education and training of health workers, and those involved in the education of parents.
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The availability of controlled medicines is crucial for patients requiring palliative care, pain relief and symptom management. Many individuals worldwide, especially in low- and middle-income countries, continue to experience limited access to these essential medicines. Enhancing access to controll...ed medicines is paramount in promoting universal health coverage. This report offers a detailed situational analysis of policies and programmes aimed at improving access to affordable, high-quality controlled medicines for pain management in the WHO South-East Asia Region. The report identifies the existing barriers, challenges and possible solutions to facilitate access to such medicines across all Member States.
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The content of these guidelines goes beyond the technicalities of medical needs with additional insights into community empowerment, possible access to welfare and economic opportunities and similar issues. If these are adequately explored, the health and quality of life of people affected and their... families would be greatly restored.
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