In one of his final essays, statesman and former United Nations secretary general Kofi Annan said, ‘Snakebite is the most important tropical disease you’ve never heard of’. Mr. Annan firmly believed that victims of snakebite envenoming should be recognised and afforded greater efforts at impro...ved prevention, treatment, and rehabilitation. During the last years of his life, he advocated strongly for the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the global community to give greater priority to this disease of poverty and its victims.
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Noma (cancrum oris) is a severe gangrenous disease of the mouth and face. It mostly affects children between the ages of 2 and 6 years living in extreme poverty. In addition to the known factors such as malnutrition, lack of vaccination in children and poor oral hygiene, several social and environme...ntal factors such as maternal malnutrition and close spacing of pregnancies that result in offspring with increasingly weakened immune systems are potentially related to the onset of the disease.
The aim of this guide is to assist the ministries of health (MoHs) to identify a general goal to be attained by the end of five years, with a view to sustainably reducing the incidence of noma as a public health problem through programmes that are fully integrated with national health planning, strengthening of primary health care (PHC) and attainment of UHC.
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The Trends and Developments report presents a top-level overview of the drug phenomenon in Europe, covering drug supply, use and public health problems as well as drug policy and responses. Together with the online Statistical Bulletin and 30 Country Drug Reports, it makes up the 2019 European Drug ...Report package.
Available in different languages: http://www.emcdda.europa.eu/publications/edr/trends-developments/2019_en
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Climate Change 2021: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
This brief advocacy document highlights the burden, risks and prevention of injuries and violence, which took the lives of 4.4 million people in 2019 and constitute 8% of all deaths. Among the injury-related causes of death include road traffic crashes, drowning, falls, burns, poisoning and violence... against oneself or others. For people age 5-29 years, three of the top five causes of death are injury-related, including road traffic injuries, homicide, and suicide. Injuries and violence are not evenly distributed across or within countries – some people are more vulnerable than others depending on the conditions in which they are born, grow, work, live and age; in general, being young, male and of low socioeconomic status all increase the risk of injury. This document, aimed at public health professionals; injury prevention researchers, practitioners and advocates; and donors, draws attention to specific strategies based on sound scientific evidence that are effective and cost-effective at preventing injuries and violence; it is critical that these strategies are more widely implemented.
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The toolkit aims to provide researchers with guidance for improving the quality of studies that use administrative data to better ascertain child maltreatment incidence, response and service delivery. However, these are complex studies to conduct, and the toolkit is not meant to be comprehensive. Re...searchers using the toolkit should be prepared to follow up on the recommended resources contained within and to consult with other professionals, such as statisticians, to further improve the research design and execution
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EU Policies Contribute to Abuse of Migrants in Libya
This report documents severe overcrowding, unsanitary conditions, malnutrition, and lack of adequate health care. Human Rights Watch found violent abuse by guards in four official detention centers in western Libya, including beatings and whippin...gs. Human Rights Watch witnessed large numbers of children, including newborns, detained in grossly unsuitable conditions in three out of the four detention centers. Almost 20 percent of those who reached Europe by sea from Libya in 2018 were children.
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The 2021 Financing for Sustainable Development Report responds to the request made by Member States to review the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on nancing for sustainable development, and to propose recommendations to rebuild better. The report underlines the need for policy actions to ensure e e...ctive support until the recovery is rmly underway. Its thematic chapter discusses the systemic and interlinked nature of risk in a tightly intertwined world, and the importance of providing nancing for risk reduction and resilience and nancing that is risk-informed and resilient. With the collaboration of more than 60 agencies of the United Nations system and partner international organizations, the report provides much needed guidance to Member States to take action towards a more resilient future.
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The KMC implementation strategy targets a broad audience. These include policy-makers and programme managers at national, regional and local levels, government and nongovernmental organizations working in the area of maternal and newborn care, global and national professional associations, public an...d private hospital management at all levels of care, and facility- and community-based maternal and infant care providers.
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The 2022 Financing for Sustainable Development Report identifies a “great finance divide” as a main driver of the divergent recovery. Developed countries were able to borrow record sums at ultra-low interest rates to support their people and economies, but the pandemic response and investment in... recovery of poor countries was limited by fiscal constraints. This joint report, by over 60 agencies of the United Nations system and partner international organizations, provides analysis and puts forward policy recommendations to overcome this “finance divide” and enhance developing countries’ access to financing for recovery and productive and sustainable investment.
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The consolidated guidelines are expected to provide the basis and rationale for the development of national guidelines for LTBI management, adapted to the national and local epidemiology of TB, the availability of resources, the health infrastructure and other national and local determinants. The gu...idelines are to be used primarily in national TB and HIV control programmes, or their equivalents in ministries of health, and for other policy-makers working on TB and HIV and infectious diseases. They are also appropriate for officials in other line ministries with work in the areas of health.
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The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) today released two new data dashboards that highlight the huge disparities in countries’ abilities to cope with and recover from the COVID-19 crisis.
The pandemic is more than a global health emergency. It is a systemic human development crisis, a...lready affecting the economic and social dimensions of development in unprecedented ways. Policies to reduce vulnerabilities and build capacities to tackle crises, both in the short and long term, are vital if individuals and societies are to better weather and recover from shocks like this.
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The 2020 Financing for Sustainable Development Report, the fifth report of the Inter-agency Task Force on Financing for Development, provides a comprehensive assessment of the state of sustainable finance. Prepared by more than 60 agencies of the United Nations system and partner international organ...izations, the report brings together a wide range of expertise and perspectives. It puts forward a set of policy recommendations to mobilize financing flows, and align them with economic, social and environmental priorities. These recommendations should assist Member States and all other stakeholders as they work toward fully implementing the Addis Agenda and achieve the SDGs.
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The world is facing a sustainable development crisis. The 2024 Financing for Sustainable Development Report: Financing for Development at a Crossroads finds that financing challenges are at the heart of the crisis and imperil the SDGs and climate action. The window to rescue the SDGs and prevent a c...limate catastrophe is still open but closing rapidly. Financing gaps for sustainable development are large and growing – the estimates by international organizations and others are coalescing around $4 trillion additional investment needed annually for developing countries. This represents a more than 50% increase over the pre-pandemic estimates. Meanwhile, the finance divide has not been bridged, with developing countries paying around twice as much on average in interest on their total sovereign debt stock as developed countries. Many countries lack access to affordable finance or are in debt distress. Weak enabling environments are preventing progress. Average global growth has declined, while policy and regulatory frameworks still do not set appropriate incentives. Public budgets and spending is not fully aligned with SDGs. Private investors are not incentivised to invest enough in SDGs and climate action. The world is at a crossroads. This is the last chance to correct course if we want to achieve the SDGs by the 2030 deadline. Only an urgent, large-scale and sustainable investment push can help us achieve our global goals. Next year’s Fourth International Conference on Financing for Development in 2025 will be a once in 80-year opportunity to support coherent transformation of financing.
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Testing and diagnosis of hepatitis B (HBV) and C (HCV) infection is the gateway for access to both prevention and treatment services, and is a crucial component of an effective response to the hepatitis epidemic. Early identification of persons with chronic HBV or HCV infection enables them to recei...ve the necessary care and treatment to prevent or delay progression of liver disease. Testing also provides an opportunity to link people to interventions to reduce transmission, through counselling on risk behaviours and provision of prevention commodities (such as sterile needles and syringes) and hepatitis B vaccination.
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WHO published the first COVID-19 Strategic Response and Preparedness Plan (SPRP) on 3 February, 2020. This report highlights the main points of progress that were made up to 30 June 2020 under the three objectives outlined in the SPRP: scaling up international coordination and support; scaling up co...untry preparedness and response by pillar; and accelerating research and innovation. The report also discusses some of the key challenges faced so far, and provides an update on the resource requirements for the next phase of WHO’s response as part of an unprecedented whole-of-UN approach to the pandemic.
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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 report focuses on antibacterial resistance (ABR) in common bacterial pathogens. There is a major gap in knowledge about the magnitude of this problem. Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) threatens the effective revention and treatment of an ever-increasing range of infections caused by bacteria, para...sites, viruses and fungi. This WHO report, produced in collaboration with Member States and other partners, provides for the first time, as accurate a picture as is presently possible of the magnitude of AMR and the current state of surveillance globally. It examines the information on AMR, in particular antibacterial resistance (ABR), at country level worldwide.
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Working document from an informal consultation of experts. A Protocol for risk assessment at the field level. The purpose of document is to provide guidance on the methodology to be used for assessing, at field level, the yellow fever virus circulation in areas at risk, and is primarily intended fo...r public health specialists
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The position papers are intended for use by national public health officials and managers of immunization programmes. They may also be of interest to international funding agencies, vaccine advisory groups, vaccine manufacturers, health professionals, researchers, the scientific media and the genera...l public.
Les notes de synthèse s’adressent aux responsables nationaux de la santé publique et aux administrateurs des programmes de vaccination, mais elles peuvent également présenter un intérêt pour les organismes internationaux de financement, les groupes consultatifs sur la vaccination, les fabricants de vaccins, les professionnels de la santé, les chercheurs, les médias scientifiques et le grand public.
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