This brief guidance note seeks to provide advice on protecting and supporting the mental health and psychosocial wellbeing of refugees, asylum-seekers and migrants in Europe. It describes key principles and appropriate interventions to guide all those who are designing and organizing emergency servi...ces and/or providing direct assistance to the affected people
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Sepsis remains a leading cause of mortality and morbidity, especially during the first five days of life and in low and middle-income countries (LMIC) [1]. Hospital infection also remains a major cause of mortality in children despite progress encountered in the last decades.
This checklist is an operational tool to help national authorities develop or revise national respiratory pathogen (inclusive of influenza and coronaviruses) pandemic preparedness plans.
The importance of fruits and vegetables in nutritious and healthy diets is well recognized, and in recent years consumers have been encouraged to eat more of these products. For many countries, particularly developing countries, these products have become a valuable commodity. At the same time, food... safety problems linked to the consumption of fresh fruits and vegetables contaminated with microorganisms are increasing
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The education sector forms an important part of the child protection response in refugee settings, and UNHCR’s Education Strategy (2012-16) reflects a focus on refugee education as a core component of UNHCR’s protection mandate. The right to education for all children also forms part of the Unit...ed Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. UNHCR’s Education Strategy promotes the importance of schools as safe learning environments, emphasises improving access to quality education for refugee children and maximises the protective benefits of participation in school. It advocates for the integration of refugee children into national education systems.
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an approach to optimize the global impact of COVID-19 vaccines, based on public health goals, global and national equity, and vaccine access and coverage scenarios, first issued 20 October 2020, updated: 13 November 2020, updated: 16 July 2021, latest update: 21 January 2022
Available in English, F...rench, Spanish
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Ethiopia is home to 25 million girls and women who have experienced FGM. More than half are in the regions of Oromia and Amhara. Overall, 65 per cent of girls and women aged 15 to 49 have undergone FGM. The highest prevalence is in the Somali (99 per cent) and Afar (91 per cent) regions
The impact of maternal mental health problems on infants in high income countries has been identified mostly in terms of psychosocial and emotional development, thanks to the groundbreaking early work of Spitz (2) and of Bowlby (3), who studied the emotional needs of infants and mother-child attachm...ent. Subsequently, a large body of literature, also from HICs, documented the effects of maternal mental health on the child's psychological development (4), intellectual competence(5), psychosocial functioning (6) and rate of psychiatric morbidity (7, 8).
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This updated implementation guidance is intended for all those who set policy for, or offer care to, pregnant women, families and infants: governments; national managers of maternal and child health programmes in general, and of breastfeeding- and BFHI-related programmes in particular; and health-f...acility managers at different levels (facility directors, medical directors, chiefs of maternity and neonatal wards). The document presents the first revision of the Ten Steps since 1989. The topic of each step is unchanged, but the wording of each one has been updated in line with the evidence-based guidelines and global public health policy.
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The Education 2030 Incheon Declaration and Framework for Action specifies that the mandate of the Global Education Monitoring Report is to be ‘the mechanism for monitoring and reporting on SDG 4 and on education in the other SDGs’ with the responsibility to ‘report on the implementation of nat...ional and international strategies to help hold all relevant partners to account for their commitments as part of the overall SDG follow-up and review.’ It is prepared by an independent team hosted by UNESCO.
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A national overview with a case study from Tanahun district. The overall aims of this study are (1) to assess the extent to which social protection systems in Nepal address the needs of people with disabilities; and (2) to identify and document elements of good practice, as well as challenges, in th...e design and delivery of social protection for people with disabilities. As most social protection programmes in Nepal are targeted to various groups considered to be a high risk of poverty or marginalisation (e.g. orphans, widows), the research mainly focuses on disability-specific schemes, as they are relevant to a higher proportion of people with disabilities.
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April 2020
This Guidance Note offers a list of recommendations based on a combination of WHO guidelines, good practice and expert advice based on the latest scientific research. The situation with COVID-19 is evolving rapidly and the guidance will continue to be updated if and when new evidence o...r information becomes available.
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Since the Alma Ata Declaration in 1978, community health volunteers (CHVs) have been at the forefront, providing health services, especially to underserved communities, in low-income countries. However, consolidation of CHVs position within formal health systems has proved to be complex and continue...s to challenge countries, as they devise strategies to strengthen primary healthcare. Malawi’s community health strategy, launched in 2017, is a novel attempt to harmonise the multiple health
service structures at the community level and strengthen service delivery through a team-based approach. The core community health team (CHT) consists of health surveillance assistants (HSAs), clinicians, environmental health officers and CHVs. This paper reviews Malawi’s strategy, with particular focus on the interface between HSAs, volunteers in community-based programmes and
the community health team. Our analysis identified key challenges that may impede the strategy’s implementation:
(1) inadequate training, imbalance of skill sets within CHTs and unclear job descriptions for CHVs; (2) proposed community-level interventions require expansion of pre-existing roles for most CHT members; and (3) district authorities may face challenges meeting financial obligations and filling community-level positions. For effective implementation, attention and further deliberation is needed on the appropriate forms of CHV support, CHT composition with possibilities of co-opting trained CHVs
from existing volunteer programmes into CHTs, review of CHT competencies and workload, strengthening coordination and communication across all community actors, and financing mechanisms. Policy support through the development of an addendum to the strategy, outlining opportunities for task-shifting between CHT members, CHVs’ expected duties and interactions with paid CHT personnel is recommended.
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These new reports from WHO document evidence of widespread inappropriate promotion of baby and toddler foods. Despite the WHO Guidance on ending inappropriate promotion of foods for infants and young children agreed in 2016 and nearly 40 years since the introduction of the International Code of Mark...eting of Breast-milk Substitutes, many companies that manufacture or distribute commercial baby foods fail to comply with these rules.
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This guideline examines the evidence and makes recommendations and remarks on the implementation of some of the details of breastfeeding counselling, such as frequency, timing, mode and provider of breastfeeding counselling, to improve breastfeeding practices. The objective of this guideline is to p...rovide global, evidence-informed recommendations on breastfeeding counselling, as a public health intervention, to improve breastfeeding practices among pregnant women and mothers who intend to breastfeed, or are currently breastfeeding, and their infants and children
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The KNAP 2018 - 2022 is the second National Nutrition Action Plan that operationalizes the National Food and Nutrition Security Policy 2012 and its implementation framework (NFNSP-IF) 2017–2022.
In this article a cluster randomized cross-sectional survey, conducted in Albay Province in the Philippines in April 2016, was used to assess the prevalence of disability and access to support services. This was done with the purpose of generating representative data for local programme development.... A cross-sectional survey was carried out with the WG/UNICEF methodology to examine the prevalence of disabilities, and the accessibility and coverage of relevant services. The aim is for this information to be used for public policy formulation at all levels, as well as to improve communication and advocacy on disabilities.
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Coronavirus Disease-19 (COVID-19) was declared a global pandemic on 11 March 2020, and Malawi declared its first case on 2 April. As of 30 April, there were 36 confirmed positive cases of COVID-19 and 3 deaths. A State of Disaster was declared by President Arthur Peter Mutharika on 20 March and a 21...-day lockdown was implemented from 18 April to 9 May. The lockdown measures include: bans on public gatherings; closure of schools; and bans on international flights and cross-border passenger buses.
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