Primary care represents the first level of personal health care services in the community, which ensures accessible, continual,
whole-person care for health needs throughout an individual’s lifespan. Primary care professionals work with patients and
their families to address their immediate and ...long-term health needs and not just for a set of specific diseases with an
approach that addresses the broader determinants of health and the interrelated aspects that influence people’s physical,
mental, and social well-being.
Nurses have a key role to play in primary care in expanding, connecting and coordinating care. Through their training and
work, they are well placed and have been shown to provide safe and effective care in disease prevention, diagnosis,
treatment, management and rehabilitation. The purpose of this document is to provide guidance and inspiration for
policymakers, instructors, managers and clinicians
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Due to the heterogeneous distribution of malaria transmission and its determinants, subnational tailoring (SNT) provides an analytical framework to facilitate the targeting of each population with appropriate intervention packages for maximum impact to inform national strategic planning and prioriti...zation based on resources available. The WHO Global Malaria Programme recommends the use of subnational data on disease epidemiology and other relevant local contextual factors to facilitate the process of SNT. Once the strategies and intervention mixes have been defined, programmes can proceed to the prioritization of
interventions for effective programming, based on available resources
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Policy Brief, Updated in March 2017
Key messages
• Meaningful involvement of sex workers in the HIV response through peer-based education and outreach and consultation in policy making and programme planning is vital to reduce their vulnerability to HIV and other sexually transmitted inf...ections (STIs) and ensure that the challenges they face are addressed adequately.
• Sex workers (female, transgender and male) have the right to protect their health through accessing comprehensive and evidence-informed HIV and sexual and reproductive health (SRH) interventions.
• Innovative HIV prevention strategies and creative use of combination interventions are needed to reach mobile and ”hard to reach” sex workers.
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S Afr Med J 2018;108(7):546-550. DOI:10.7196/SAMJ.2018.v108i7.13149
Antimicrobial stewardship programmes have been introduced worldwide in response to the rise in antimicrobial resistance. The World Health Organization has mandated each Member State to produce a plan to address this problem. We rep...ort on the organic development of an antibiotic stewardship programme in a rural regional hospital in a resource-limited setting in South Africa. This has resulted in organisational change with increased awareness, participation, monitoring and education in antibiotic stewardship throughout the hospital
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The Ministry of Education, Arts and Culture (MoEAC) has been implementing the Integrated School Health Programme in various forms since before the country attained political independence in 1990. School health goes beyond the physical health of the learner, in that it includes the holistic wellbeing... of the individual learner, meaning that the school environment should be safe and conducive to learning. The National Safe Schools Framework (NSSF) is an exciting dimension of the Integrated School Health Programme. The Programme focuses on promoting the health, safety and wellbeing of learners and other school stakeholders in Namibia, and the NSSF was developed to provide practical guidance to the schools and school stakeholders on how to systematically improve the standards of school safety, and how to develop a culture of care in any school.
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Developed under the USAID-supported HRH2030 Capacity Building for Malaria (CBM) initiative, this guide offers a comprehensive framework for advising National Malaria Control Programmes (NMCPs) through the use of long-term technical advisors (LTTAs). It sets out key practices for implementing partner...s and advisors, covering advisor selection, onboarding, contextual analysis and capacity-building strategies at individual and organisational levels. It emphasises collaborative work planning, continuous performance monitoring, stakeholder engagement and the use of assessment tools such as the Capability Maturity Model (CMM) and the Organisational Development Assessment (ODA). The guide is designed to strengthen the leadership and operational effectiveness of NMCPs, promoting sustainable improvements in malaria control through structured mentorship, knowledge transfer and strategic partnerships.
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This chapter of the AMP LLIN Mass Campaign Toolkit outlines the strategic communication approaches that are essential before, during and after long-lasting insecticide-treated net (LLIN) distribution campaigns. It emphasises the importance of setting up a national communications sub-committee under ...the leadership of the National Malaria Control Programme (NMCP) and the Ministry of Health (MoH) to coordinate advocacy, social mobilisation and behaviour change communication (BCC). The aim of these three components is to secure political and financial support, mobilise communities, and promote sustained net use through tailored, multi-channel messaging. Effective coordination and planning are critical for successful malaria prevention efforts.
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Pillar 3 of the Global technical strategy for malaria 2016–2030 calls for the transformation of malaria surveillance into a core intervention in all malaria-endemic countries, as well as in countries which have eliminated malaria but remain susceptible to re-establishment of transmission. This ref...erence manual covers subjects that are relevant to both settings.
The target readership of this manual includes staff working in ministries of health, national malaria programmes and health information systems; partners involved in malaria surveillance; and WHO technical officers who advise countries on malaria surveillance.
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National tuberculosis (TB) prevalence surveys provide a nationally representative measurement of the burden of TB disease in the population, at a given point in time. Repeat surveys allow assessment of trends and tracking of progress towards national and global targets for reductions in TB disease b...urden. Survey data also provide important insights that can help national TB programmes to identify ways to improve TB diagnosis and treatment.
National TB prevalence surveys are relevant in countries that do not yet have national disease notification and vital registration systems that are of sufficiently high quality and coverage to allow reliable tracking of TB disease burden.
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The main objective of these guidelines is to provide guidance on up-to-date, uniform, evidence-informed practices for suspecting, diagnosing and managing various forms of extra-pulmonary tuberculosis (EPTB) at all levels of healthcare delivery. They can then contribute to the National Programme to i...mprove detection, care and outcomes in EPTB; to help the programme with initiation of treatment, adherence and completion whilst minimizing drug toxicity and overtreatment; and contribute to practices that minimize the development of drug resistance.
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The toolkit's purpose is to:
improve the primary health care response for older persons.
sensitize and educate primary health care workers about the specific needs of their older clients.
provide primary care health workers with a set of tools/instruments to assess older people's hea...lth.
raise awareness among primary care health workers of the accumulation of minor/major disabilities experienced by older people.
provide guidance on how to make primary health care management procedures more responsive to the needs of older people's needs.
offer direction on how to do environmental audits to test primary health care centres for their age-friendliness.
The toolkit comprises a number of instruments (evaluation forms, slides, figures, graphs, diagrams, scale tables, country guidelines, exam sheets, screening tools, cards, checklists, etc.) that can be used by primary health care workers to assess and address older persons' health. These resources are meant to supplement and not to replace local and national materials and guidelines
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Prepared as an outcome of ICMR Subcommittee on Soft Tissue Sarcoma and Osteosarcoma | This consensus document on Management of Soft Tissue Sarcoma and Osteosarcoma summarizes the modalities of treatment including the site-specific anti-cancer therapies, supportive and palliative care and molecular ...markers and research questions. It also interweaves clinical, biochemical and epidemiological studies.
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Prepared as an outcome of ICMR Subcommittee on Buccal Mucosa Cancer | This consensus document on management of Buccal Mucosa cancers summarizes the modalities of treatment including the site-specific anti-cancer therapies, supportive and palliative care and molecular markers and research questions. ...It also interweaves clinical, biochemical and epidemiological studies.
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Prepared as an outcome of ICMR Subcommittee on Gastric Cancer | This consensus document on Management of Gallbladder cancers summarizes the modalities of treatment including the site-specific anti-cancer therapies, supportive and palliative care and molecular markers and research questions. It also ...interweaves clinical, biochemical and epidemiological studies.
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Prepared as an outcome of ICMR Subcommittee on Esophageal Cancer | This consensus document on management of esophageal cancers
summarizes the modalities of treatment including the site-specific anti-cancer therapies, supportive and palliative care and molecular markers and research questions. It a...lso interweaves clinical, biochemical and epidemiological studies.
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Prepared as an outcome of ICMR Subcommittee on Tongue Cancer | This Consensus Document on Management of Tongue Cancers summarizes the modalities of treatment including the site-specific anti-cancer therapies, supportive and palliative care and molecular markers and research questions. It also interw...eaves clinical, biochemical and epidemiological studies.
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Preventing tuberculosis infection from progressing to tuberculosis disease is a crucial component of the goal to eliminate tuberculosis. When deciding on the use of tuberculosis preventive therapy among household contacts, policy makers regularly ask questions, such as whether tuberculosis preventiv...e therapy is effective, safe, and feasible in a programme setting and what it will cost. For contact management and tuberculosis preventive therapy for multidrug-resistant and rifampicin-resistant tuberculosis, studies from high-income and low-income countries have shown feasibility, safety, and effectiveness.
However, there is scarce information on the cost of tuberculosis preventive therapy for multidrug-resistant and rifampicin-resistant tuberculosis. In The Lancet Global Health, Peter Dodd and colleagues show that household contact management strategies are cost-effective even in low-income and middle-income countries, which has important policy implications for achieving the END TB Strategy goals.
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The updated List of Essential Diagnostics contains 46 general tests that can be used for routine patient care as well as for the detection and diagnosis of a wide array of disease conditions, and 69 tests intended for the detection, diagnosis and monitoring of specific diseases.
The List is divid...ed into two sections depending on the user and setting: one for community settings, which includes self-testing; and a second one for clinical laboratories, which can be general and specialized facilities.
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Prepared as an outcome of ICMR Subcommittee on Multiple Myeloma | This consensus document on management of multiple myeloma summarizes the modalities of treatment including the site-specific anti-cancer therapies, supportive and palliative care and molecular markers and research questions. It also i...nterweaves clinical, biochemical and epidemiological studies.
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Prepared as an outcome of ICMR Subcommittee on Colorectal Cancer | Coordinated by Division of Non Communicable Diseases | This Consensus Document on Management of Colorectal Cancer summarizes the modalities of treatment including the site-specific anti-cancer therapies,
supportive and palliative ca...re and molecular markers and research questions. It also interweaves clinical, biochemical and epidemiological studies.
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