Category: Health Advice

A suite of tools to help countries improve diagnosis and treatment of cancer among children is being released today by the World Health Organization, on International Childhood Cancer Day. The package includes a “how-to” guide for policy-makers, cancer control programme managers and hospital managers; an assessment tool to inform implementation; and a multilingual online portal for information-sharing. The new tools will support countries with implementation of the CureAll approach, adopted by WHO’s Global Initiative for Childhood Cancer.  The Initiative, launched in 2018, aims to achieve at least 60% survival for…

Today WHO listed two versions of the AstraZeneca/Oxford COVID-19 vaccine for emergency use, giving the green light for these vaccines to be rolled out globally through COVAX. The vaccines are produced by AstraZeneca-SKBio (Republic of Korea) and the Serum Institute of India. WHO’s Emergency Use Listing (EUL) assesses the quality, safety and efficacy of COVID-19 vaccines and is a prerequisite for COVAX Facility vaccine supply. It also allows countries to expedite their own regulatory approval to import and administer COVID-19 vaccines. “Countries with no access to vaccines to date will…

In 2015, WHO and partners mobilized the WASH community to help accelerate and sustain efforts to control and eliminate NTDs  through a Global Strategy for 2015-2020. This was later supplemented by the publication of a toolkit, developed jointly with the NTD NGO Network (NNN), to help health and WASH partners with the practicalities of working together. The NTD road map 2021-2030 was launched on 28 January 2021. It aims to strengthen programmatic responses to NTDs, and specifically encourages cross-sector actions in NTD control, elimination and eradication. The road map includes…

A three-year pilot project for the control of taeniasis in Madagascar has shown very interesting and far-reaching results. Eligible adults and children aged five and over in 52 villages in the District of Antanifotsy1 were treated with the medicine praziquantel2 (at a dose of 10 mg/kg). The medicine was well-tolerated, with no major side events reported throughout the duration of the project. “This is the first such project for the control of taeniasis in Madagascar and we achieved a treatment coverage as high as 95%” said Dr Sylvia Ramiandrasoa, who…

WHO has launched its first SMART Guideline, a landmark effort to accelerate the availability and impact of WHO health and data recommendations within digital systems at the country level, starting with antenatal care. What are SMART guidelines? As countries increasingly invest in digital technologies for health system strengthening, SMART Guidelines constitute a practical approach to making global guidance more effective across all areas of health and wellbeing. They will support guideline developers, policy makers, technology teams, and health workers through the process of adapting and applying WHO global health and…

At the halfway point in the World Health Organization and Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus’ 100-day challenge, a movement of people and organizations is now uniting together under the banner of vaccine equity. WHO welcomes the new commitments made by France, Germany, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the United States of America to COVAX and equitable allocation of vaccines. Backed by 190 countries and economies, COVAX is the global mechanism best positioned to deliver vaccines to the world and end the COVID-19 pandemic. “There is a…