Guidance

Global standards for quality health-care services for adolescents: Standards and criteria

IsabellaP — Fri, 14 Jun 2024 00:38:48 +0000

Global standards for quality health-care services for adolescents: Standards and criteria IsabellaP Fri, 06/14/2024 - 03:38

Global initiatives are urging countries to prioritize quality as a way of reinforcing human rights-based approaches to health. Yet evidence from both high- and low-income countries shows that services for adolescents are highly fragmented, poorly coordinated and uneven in quality. Pockets of excellent practice exist, but, overall, services need significant improvement and should be brought into conformity with existing guidelines.

The WHO/UNAIDS global standards for quality health-care services for adolescents aim to assist policy-makers and health service planners to improve the quality of health-care services, so that adolescents find it easier to obtain the health services that they need to promote, protect, and improve their health and well-being, according to their needs.

This publication presents global standards for quality health-care services for adolescents, as well as an implementation guide and monitoring tools.

Paediatric and Adolescent Treatment

Adolescent Prevention

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Key affected populations

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Adolescent and young key populations

Adolescent friendly services

Adolescent health

Adolescents living with HIV

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Global standards for quality health-care services for adolescents: Standards and criteria

The adolescent health indicators recommended by the Global Action for Measurement of Adolescent Health

rlekirkegaard — Sun, 09 Jun 2024 13:40:41 +0000

The adolescent health indicators recommended by the Global Action for Measurement of Adolescent Health rlekirkegaard Sun, 06/09/2024 - 16:40

This document is an interactive guide for the uniform collection, compilation, reporting, and use of adolescent health data.

Adolescence is a critical stage in life for physical, cognitive and emotional development, shaping future health and well-being. Comprehensive measurement of adolescent health is essential to prioritize health issues, guide interventions and track progress. However, global, regional and national adolescent health measurement has historically been inconsistent and incomplete.

The Global Action for Measurement of Adolescent health (GAMA) Advisory Group has been established by the World Health Organization (WHO) in collaboration with United Nations partners to support efforts to focus adolescent health measurement on the most important issues and to improve alignment across different measurement initiatives.

The indicators are intended to guide policy and programming for adolescents, and to assist in identifying topics in which more detailed health assessments and additional programming are needed. The last chapter in this guidance document describes how this can be done, based on the approach suggested in the Accelerated Action for the Health of Adolescents (AA-HA!) guidance.

This document presents a list of 47 indicators recommended by GAMA for measurement of adolescent health, which are applicable to all adolescent population subgroups and span Well-being Outcomes.

Paediatric and Adolescent Treatment

Adolescent Prevention

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The adolescent health indicators recommended by the GAMA

Progress Report and Road Map for the Triple Elimination of Mother-to-Child Transmission of HIV, Syphilis, and Hepatitis B in the MENA and EM Region

IsabellaP — Fri, 17 May 2024 22:32:28 +0000

Progress Report and Road Map for the Triple Elimination of Mother-to-Child Transmission of HIV, Syphilis, and Hepatitis B in the MENA and EM Region IsabellaP Sat, 05/18/2024 - 01:32

This is the first report on progress towards the triple elimination of mother-to-child transmission (EMTCT) of HIV, syphilis and hepatitis B virus (HBV) across 23 countries in the Middle East and North Africa/ Eastern Mediterranean (MENA/EM) region.

Countries included in this report: Algeria, Afghanistan, Bahrain, Djibouti, Egypt, the Islamic Republic of Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Oman, Pakistan, Qatar, State of Palestine, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, the Syrian Arab Republic, Tunisia, United Arab Emirates, Yemen.

To support countries in the region to achieve triple elimination goals, this report collects and assesses national policies and key indicators on EMTCT efforts against WHO criteria for validation of the EMTCT of HIV, syphilis and HBV. Based on analysis and consultations with national policymakers, the report provides a Road Map for countries at different stages of readiness to follow towards triple elimination goals. The report also provides a set of recommendations for all countries to prioritize EMTCT policy and programming actions over the short, medium, and long term.

PMTCT

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UNICEF

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Middle East and North Africa

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Family centred care/services

Maternal, newborn and children health

PMTCT

Testing

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Evidence and data

Global and regional report

Guidance

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2024

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Progress Report and Road Map for the Triple Elimination of Mother-to-Child Transmission of HIV, Syphilis, and Hepatitis B

Technical Brief on Paediatric HIV Case-Finding: Beyond Infant Testing

IsabellaP — Thu, 11 Apr 2024 15:01:07 +0000

Technical Brief on Paediatric HIV Case-Finding: Beyond Infant Testing IsabellaP Thu, 04/11/2024 - 18:01

Despite global progress in HIV treatment for children, the gap between adult and paediatric treatment coverage continues to widen. This gap is driven primarily by barriers to HIV diagnosis in children, but in the past decade those barriers have shifted.

Scaling-up HIV case-finding efforts for children presents several challenges, including limited access to testing services, lack of provider preparedness to offer testing to children, stigma and discrimination, policy barriers related to age of consent, and inadequate health systems. The aim of this technical brief is to offer countries a guide to address these challenges and enhance HIV case-finding for children to improve testing coverage for children at risk for HIV. This technical brief focuses primarily on how programmes can identify those children who may have missed out on EID testing, who were never tested after breastfeeding or whose mothers were not enrolled in care.

Diagnostics

PMTCT

Paediatric and Adolescent Treatment

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UNICEF

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Global

Eastern and Southern Africa

West and Central Africa

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United Republic of Tanzania

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Maternal, newborn and children health

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Technical Brief on Paediatric HIV Case-Finding: Beyond Infant Testing

Key considerations for fast-tracking EMTCT in lower-prevalence settings

IsabellaP — Wed, 03 Apr 2024 01:14:04 +0000

Key considerations for fast-tracking EMTCT in lower-prevalence settings IsabellaP Wed, 04/03/2024 - 04:14

This key considerations document, developed by UNICEF and WHO, expands on the 2020 “last mile” operational guidance, with specific considerations for countries with lower HIV prevalence. It builds on the experiences of countries that have been validated for EMTCT of HIV and syphilis and translates the valuable lessons and promising practices of these countries into an operational framework for national programmes, consisting of 12 strategies and enablers to guide efforts towards Fast-Tracking EMTCT in lower prevalence countries.

It is based on a review of experiences, key lessons learned and promising practices in implementation of EMTCT interventions in lower prevalence countries, including Sri Lanka and Thailand, which have been validated by WHO for having eliminated vertical transmission of HIV, and three countries with the potential to achieve EMTCT by 2030: the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ghana and India.

PMTCT

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UNICEF

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East Asia and the Pacific

South Asia

West and Central Africa

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Sri Lanka

Thailand

Democratic Republic of the Congo

Ghana

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Infants

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Family centred care/services

Maternal, newborn and children health

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Key considerations for fast-tracking EMTCT in lower-prevalence settings

Global Accelerated Action for the Health of Adolescents (AA-HA!) - Second edition

rlekirkegaard — Mon, 26 Feb 2024 20:26:37 +0000

Global Accelerated Action for the Health of Adolescents (AA-HA!) - Second edition rlekirkegaard Mon, 02/26/2024 - 22:26

This second edition of AA-HA! guidance to support country implementation builds on the first edition published in 2017. It is a collaborative effort spearheaded by the World Health Organization in collaboration with UNAIDS, UNESCO, UNFPA, UNICEF, UN WOMEN, the World Food Programme and PMNCH.

Building on the solid foundation of the first edition and voices of adolescents and young adults around the world, this multi-agency product has evolved to incorporate valuable learnings from the past six years, including of the COVID-19 pandemic's impacts. Latest estimates of mortality and disease burden, updated evidence, and a broader focus on wellbeing make the second edition a cutting-edge resource for policy makers in the area of adolescent health and well-being.

AA-HA! 2.0 offers insights into the current health and well-being landscape of the world’s over 1.2 billion adolescents, underlining evidence-based solutions and presenting strategies for priority setting, planning, implementing, and evaluating health and well-being programmes. The inclusion of key implementation strategies and real-world case studies make this guide a practical tool for governments in designing and implementing a new generation of adolescent health and well-being programmes.

Paediatric and Adolescent Treatment

Adolescent Prevention

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WHO

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Global

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Adolescents

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Adolescent friendly services

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Guidance

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2023

Introducing a framework for implementing triple elimination of mother-to-child transmission of HIV, syphilis and hepatitis B virus

rlekirkegaard — Fri, 23 Feb 2024 15:43:28 +0000

Introducing a framework for implementing triple elimination of mother-to-child transmission of HIV, syphilis and hepatitis B virus rlekirkegaard Fri, 02/23/2024 - 17:43

This 2023 framework from WHO and partners guides operationalization of a person-centred and integrated approach to interventions that country programmes can use to effectively scale-up triple elimination efforts and reach targets.

The novel Four Pillars Framework for Triple Elimination Implementation to guide country-led planning and implementation is aligned with the GHSS on HIV, viral hepatitis and sexually transmitted infections 2022−2030. The overarching goal of the framework is to support countries in operationalizing the move from single (HIV) and dual elimination (HIV and syphilis) to triple elimination of HIV, syphilis and HBV. This represents a major revision and modification of the 2002 UN “four-pronged strategy” for the elimination of new HIV infections among children and keeping their mother alive to include two additional conditions − syphilis and HBV − and reflects the significant updates that have been made to WHO’s technical recommendations and guidelines in the past decade.

The Four Pillars Framework focuses on distinct target populations and comprises a minimum package of essential services for each pillar:
(1) primary prevention of infection and vertical transmission
(2) SRH linkages and integration
(3) essential maternal EMTCT services and
(4) infant, child and partner services.

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