World Health Assembly

The objective of the study was to assess the determinant factors of
low birth weight among newborns delivered at Mekelle Hospital,
northern Ethiopia.  A  cross-sectional  study  was  employed  and  cards
of 180 mothers who  gave birth to low birth weight babies were
assessed. Data was collected using pre prepared structured checklist
and analyzed using SPSS version 16.00. The association between
dependent  and  independent  variables  was  assessed  and  presented
using  descriptive  statistics,  student  t-test,  and  ANOVA  test.  Out  of
the180 mothers, 45% of them fall into the age category of 15-19
years.  The  study  finding  showed  maternal  age,  fetal  sex,  parity,
number of antenatal care, gestational age, birth order, and history of
abortion had significant association with low birth weight (P-value <
0.05).  This  study  depicted  that  low  birth  weight  is a  public  health
problem  in  the  study  area.  Hence,  attention  should  be  given  to
increase  community  awareness of antenatal  care  service,  access  to
family planning and male involvement, prevention of abortion, and
community mobilization to prevent early pregnancy.

In response to increasing evidence that surgical conditions are an important global public health problem, and data suggesting that essential surgical services can be delivered in a cost-effective manner in low- and middle-income countries, the World Health Organization (WHO) has expanded its interest in surgical care. In 2004, WHO established a Clinical Procedures Unit within the Department of Essential Health Technologies. This unit has developed the Emergency and Essential Surgical Project (EESC), which includes a basic surgical training program based on the &quot;Integrated Management of Emergency and Essential Surgical Care&quot; Toolkit and the textbook &quot;Surgery at the District Hospital.&quot; To promote the importance of emergency and essential surgical care, a Global Initiative for Emergency and Essential Care was launched in 2005. In what maybe the most important development, surgical care is included in WHO&#39;s new comprehensive primary health care plan. Given these...

The implementation of the 58th World Health Assembly resolution on e-health will pose a major challenge for the Member States of the World Health Organization (WHO) African Region due to lack of information and communications technology (ICT) and mass Internet connectivity, compounded by a paucity of ICT-related knowledge and skills. The key objectives of this article are to: (i) explore the key determinants of personal computers (PCs), telephone mainline and cellular and Internet penetration/connectivity in the African Region; and (ii) to propose actions needed to create an enabling environment for e-health services growth and utilization in the Region. The effects of school enrolment, per capita income and governance variables on the number of PCs, telephone mainlines, cellular phone subscribers and Internet users were estimated using a double-log regression model and cross-sectional data on various Member States in the African Region. The analysis was based on 45 of the 46 countr...

The adoption of the WHO Global Code of Practice on the International Recruitment of Health Personnel in May, 2010, ostensibly heralded a new era of accountability in the migration of health-care workers.1 Global health advocates lauded its unanimous adoption by all 193 WHO member states convening at the 63rd World Health Assembly as a sign of changing social expectations for human health resources, foreshadowing an imminent end to the brain drain of skilled health professionals from resource-constrained countries. But, has the Code been effective?

While the Iranian nursing profession tries to reach to its full capacity for participating in the maintenance of public health, its desire to develop is strongly influenced by cultural, economic, and religious factors. The concept of empowerment is frequently used in nursing and the health services, particularly in relation to the quality of care, since the mission of nursing is to provide safe and quality nursing care thereby enabling patients to achieve their maximum level of wellness. When considering the importance of nursing services in any health system, the 54th World Health Assembly recommended that programs be designed to strengthen and promote the nursing profession. Since empowerment is crucial to the role of nurses, a qualitative study was conducted and aimed at designing a model for empowering nurses in Iran. A grounded theory approach was used for analyzing the participants&#39; experiences, their perceptions and the strategies affecting empowerment. Data collection wa...

Dünyada 100 milyar dolar üzerinde bir ciroya sahip olan Sağlık Turizmi, yatırımcıların da girişimcilerin de rüyalarını süslüyor. Konunun sadece termalden ibaret olmadığı, yaşlı ve engelli hizmetleri ile sınırlı kalmadığı anlaşıldı. Medikal işletmeler de yeni satış kanalları kurarak bu pazara girme yolunu seçti. Türkiye de saç ekiminden organ nakline, plastik cerrahiden diş tedavisine, göz ameliyatlarından ortopediye bu alanda “yeni merkez” olmaya istekli ancak eksik çok...

Mathematical models developed for describing the dynamics of transmission, infection, disease and control of lymphatic filariasis (LF) gained momentum following the 1997 World Health Assembly resolution and the launching of the Global Programme to Eliminate Lymphatic Filariasis (GPELF) in 2000. Model applications could provide valuable inputs for making decisions while implementing large scale programmes. However these models need to be evaluated at different epidemiological settings for optimization and fine-tuning with new knowledge and understanding on infection/disease dynamics. EPIFIL and LYMFASIM are the two mathematical simulation models currently available for lymphatic filariasis transmission and control. Both models have been used for prediction and evaluation of control programmes under research settings. Their widespread application in evaluating large-scale elimination programmes warrants validation of assumptions governing the dynamics of infection and disease in diffe...

Background Following World Health Assembly resolutions 50.36 in 1997 and 56.7 in 2003, the World Health Organization (WHO) committed itself to supporting human African trypanosomiasis (HAT)-endemic countries in their efforts to remove the disease as a public health problem. Mapping the distribution of HAT in time and space has a pivotal role to play if this objective is to be met. For this reason WHO launched the HAT Atlas initiative, jointly implemented with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, in the framework of the Programme Against African Trypanosomosis. Results The distribution of HAT is presented for 23 out of 25 sub-Saharan countries having reported on the status of sleeping sickness in the period 2000 - 2009. For the two remaining countries, i.e. Angola and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, data processing is ongoing. Reports by National Sleeping Sickness Control Programmes (NSSCPs), Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) and Research Institutes ...

Between April and December 1996, a serious outbreak of poliomyelitis occurred in Albania; almost 140 subjects were involved, and the episode presented an unusually high mortality rate (12%). During the outbreak, water samples from the Lana River in Tirana, Albania, and stool samples from two cases of paralytic poliomyelitis were collected and analyzed for the presence of polioviruses. Six polioviruses were isolated from the environmental and human samples, according to standard methods. All the samples were characterized by partial genomic sequencing of 330 bases across the 5&#39; untranslated region (5&#39;-UTR) (nucleotide positions 200 to 530) and of 300 bases across the VP1 region (nucleotide positions 2474 to 2774). Comparison of these sequences with those present in data banks permitted the identification of environmental isolates Lana A and Lana B as, respectively, a Sabin-like type 2 poliovirus and an intertypic recombinant poliovirus (Sabin-like type 2/wild type 1), both be...

Between April and December 1996, a serious outbreak of poliomyelitis occurred in Albania; almost 140 subjects were involved, and the episode presented an unusually high mortality rate (12%). During the outbreak, water samples from the Lana River in Tirana, Albania, and stool samples from two cases of paralytic poliomyelitis were collected and analyzed for the presence of polioviruses. Six polioviruses were isolated from the environmental and human samples, according to standard methods. All the samples were characterized by partial genomic sequencing of 330 bases across the 5&#39; untranslated region (5&#39;-UTR) (nucleotide positions 200 to 530) and of 300 bases across the VP1 region (nucleotide positions 2474 to 2774). Comparison of these sequences with those present in data banks permitted the identification of environmental isolates Lana A and Lana B as, respectively, a Sabin-like type 2 poliovirus and an intertypic recombinant poliovirus (Sabin-like type 2/wild type 1), both be...

In 1983 the World Health Assembly declared alcohol-related problems to be among the world&#39;s major health concerns. Since then, alcohol consumption has risen in developing countries, where it takes a heavy toll. Alcohol-related problems are at epidemic levels in the successor states of the Soviet Union and are responsible for 3.5% of disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) lost globally. Substantial evidence exists of the relationship between the levels and patterns of alcohol consumption on the one hand and the incidence of alcohol-related problems on the other. Over the past 20 years, research has demonstrated the effectiveness of public policies involving, for example, taxation and restrictions on alcohol availability, in reducing alcohol-related problems. In the wake of rapid economic globalization, many of these policies at national and subnational levels have been eroded, often with the support of international financial and development organizations. Development agencies an...

Address: Vector Control Research Centre, Indira Nagar, Medical Complex, Pondicherry – 605 006, India Email: Subramanian Swaminathan* - ssubra@yahoo.com; Pani P Subash - pani.sp@gmail.com; Ravi Rengachari - ravir0591@vsnl.net; Krishnamoorthy ...

Data monitoring is a key recommendation of the WHO Global Code of Practice on the International Recruitment of Health Personnel, a global framework adopted in May 2010 to address health workforce retention in resource-limited countries and the ethics of international migration. Using data on African-born and African-educated physicians in the 2013 American Medical Association Physician Masterfile (AMA Masterfile), we monitored Sub-Saharan African (SSA) physician recruitment into the physician workforce of the United States (US) post-adoption of the WHO Code of Practice. From the observed data, we projected to 2015 with linear regression, and we mapped migrant physicians’ locations using GPS Visualizer and ArcGIS. The 2013 AMA Masterfile identified 11,787 active SSA-origin physicians, representing barely 1.3% (11,787/940,456) of the 2013 US physician workforce, but exceeding the total number of physicians reported by WHO in 34 SSA countries (N = 11,519). We estimated that 15.7% (1,849/11,787) entered the US physician workforce after the Code of Practice was adopted. Compared to pre-Code estimates from 2002 (N = 7,830) and 2010 (N = 9,938), the annual admission rate of SSA émigrés into the US physician workforce is increasing. This increase is due in large part to the growing number of SSA-born physicians attending medical schools outside SSA, representing a trend towards younger migrants. Projection estimates suggest that there will be 12,846 SSA migrant physicians in the US physician workforce in 2015, and over 2,900 of them will be post-Code recruits. Most SSA migrant physicians are locating to large urban US areas where physician densities are already the highest. The Code of Practice has not slowed the SSA-to-US physician migration. To stem the physician “brain drain”, it is essential to incentivize professional practice in SSA and diminish the appeal of US migration with bolder interventions targeting primarily early-career (age ≤ 35) SSA physicians.

Background Following World Health Assembly resolutions 50.36 in 1997 and 56.7 in 2003, the World Health Organization (WHO) committed itself to supporting human African trypanosomiasis (HAT)-endemic countries in their efforts to remove the disease as a public health problem. Mapping the distribution of HAT in time and space has a pivotal role to play if this objective is to be met. For this reason WHO launched the HAT Atlas initiative, jointly implemented with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, in the framework of the Programme Against African Trypanosomosis. Results The distribution of HAT is presented for 23 out of 25 sub-Saharan countries having reported on the status of sleeping sickness in the period 2000 - 2009. For the two remaining countries, i.e. Angola and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, data processing is ongoing. Reports by National Sleeping Sickness Control Programmes (NSSCPs), Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) and Research Institutes ...

Mathematical models developed for describing the dynamics of transmission, infection, disease and control of lymphatic filariasis (LF) gained momentum following the 1997 World Health Assembly resolution and the launching of the Global Programme to Eliminate Lymphatic Filariasis (GPELF) in 2000. Model applications could provide valuable inputs for making decisions while implementing large scale programmes. However these models need to be evaluated at different epidemiological settings for optimization and fine-tuning with new knowledge and understanding on infection/disease dynamics. EPIFIL and LYMFASIM are the two mathematical simulation models currently available for lymphatic filariasis transmission and control. Both models have been used for prediction and evaluation of control programmes under research settings. Their widespread application in evaluating large-scale elimination programmes warrants validation of assumptions governing the dynamics of infection and disease in diffe...

Address: Vector Control Research Centre, Indira Nagar, Medical Complex, Pondicherry – 605 006, India Email: Subramanian Swaminathan* - ssubra@yahoo.com; Pani P Subash - pani.sp@gmail.com; Ravi Rengachari - ravir0591@vsnl.net; Krishnamoorthy ...

Abstract deadline: 15 July 2018
Public diplomacy, defined as the communicative act of informing, engaging, and influencing publics overseas to advance national and strategic interests, may have three principal beneficial effects: encourage the growth of popular familiarity with Taiwan; generate sympathy for Taiwan’s exclusion from mainstream international politics; and offer general support for the government’s political and strategic agendas. Public diplomacy may also enable Taiwan to challenge the dominant narratives communicated by the PRC’s own expanding public diplomacy programme. While it is not a panacea for the problems Taiwan faces in the ‘disabling environment’, public diplomacy can shape the way Taiwan interacts with its environment and manage its response to the challenges it faces. By devoting more attention to its international communications and engagement activities, Taiwan will be in a stronger position to preserve its national security and interests, create diplomatic opportunities with other nation-states and organisations, and address the non-traditional threats that today require a more collaborative style of management. We invite submissions from all disciplines to address any of, but not limited to, the suggested topics as follows:

• Context: The reasons for, and consequences of (for Taiwan and the world) of Taiwan’s exclusion from the WHA
• Current campaigns for membership: The structure, content and reasons for failure
of Taiwan’s campaigns to join the WHA
• Future campaigns for membership: The possible architectures of public and cultural diplomacy strategies, as well as multi-media communication campaigns, to generate support for membership of the WHA

Background: South Africa has endorsed a World Health Assembly (WHA) resolution calling for control of soil-transmitted helminths (STHs). In Cape Town, services and housing that exist in old-established suburbs should minimise the prevalence of intestinal parasitic infections, even when residents are poor. Where families live in shacks in densely-populated areas without effective sanitation, more than 90% of children can be

On 21st May 2003, after four years of negotiation, the World Health Assembly (WHA) adopted the World Health Organisation (WHO) Framework Convention on Tobacco Control. Once ratified this framework convention will ultimately constrain the activities of the tobacco industry globally. In light of increasing litigation and exposure of the industry&#39;s strategies to maintain profitability, will the tobacco industry remain quiescent on this further threat to their legitimacy? A weapon in the tobacco industry&#39;s armoury is to redefine the public policy agenda via a legitimate forum. This can include eliciting debate in any credible forum and in doing so, attempt to validate all points of view (Davidson, 1991), This legitimating forum can include corporate social reporting (CSR) (Deegan, 2002), as practised by British American Tobacco in 2001/2002, an exemplar for an industry dominated by several large multinational corporations (Davidson, 1991: Sethi &Steidlmeier, 1991).