The Ministry of Health recognizes that access to safe water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) in health facilities is critical in the reduction of diseases, improved occupational health, more efficient health care services, improved staff morale and performance. The micro planning data generated will guide line ministries, local government authorities and development partners to position WASH in the health care facilities agenda within the Water and Health sectors. Additionally, it will support the development of a roadmap for achieving WASH-related sustainable development goals for health institutions.
The Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) 3 and SDG 6 reinforce the need to ensure adequate WASH services, which will result in a reduction in maternal mortality, ending preventable newborn deaths, and providing quality universal health coverage. The rationale of the WASH guidelines is to document procedures and provide a framework for strategic planning, implementation of functional and effective WASH services in healthcare facilities in Uganda. These guidelines offer a basis for creating the minimum conditions required for providing healthcare services in a healthy environment for healthcare workers, patients and visitors to the healthcare premises. They also serve as a tool for monitoring the performance of WASH in health care facilities.
This STARS in Uganda report, presents a comprehensive analysis and report on the national assessment of the rehabilitation and assistive technologies system in Uganda that was guided by the WHO Systematic Assessment of Rehabilitation Situation (STARS) approach.
As countries discontinue COVID-19-specific reporting and integrate respiratory disease surveillance, WHO will use all available sources to continue monitoring the COVID-19 epidemiological situation, especially data on impact. COVID-19 remains a major threat and WHO urges Member States to maintain, not dismantle, their established COVID-19 infrastructure. It is crucial to sustain early warning, surveillance and reporting, variant tracking, early clinical care provision, administration of vaccine boosters to high-risk groups, improvements in ventilation, and regular communication.
The Uganda Functional Difficulties Survey (UFDS) 2017 was conducted by the Uganda Bureau of Statistics (UBOS) with the Ministry of Gender, Labour and Social Development (MGLSD) to generate information and data on persons with disabilities in Uganda to inform planning, budgeting, implementation, monitoring and reporting on disability.
The World report on vision seeks to stimulate action in countries to address these challenges by proposing integrated people-centred eye care (IPCEC) as an approach to health system strengthening that builds the foundation for service delivery to address population needs
In response to this situation, the World Health Assembly (resolution 58.23 on “Disability, including prevention, management and rehabilitation”) requested the World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General to produce a World report on disability based on the best available scientific evidence. The World report on disability has been produced in partnership with the World Bank, as previous experience has shown the benefit of collaboration between agencies for increasing awareness, political will and action across sectors.
The purpose of this basic level training resource is to assist with the training of primary ear and hearing workers in developing countries, especially focused on Village Health Care Workers. The role of the village health care worker is vitally important for the prevention of ear and hearing disorders. An important role for the trained village health care worker is to help the patient, family and community to understand common ear diseases and hearing loss.Through this training resource, the village health care worker will be taught when to refer the patient for treatment and support. This resource covers basic methods for prevention and recognition of common ear disease and hearing loss. It also shows that, with understanding and the necessary support, people with hearing loss can play productive roles in the household, school or in the work place.
Globally, 360 million people (about 5% of the world’s population) live with disabling hearing loss, of whom 32 million are children. The prevalence of hearing loss increases from 1.7% among children to 7% in adults (including 183 million males and 145 million females).1 Nearly 180 million people aged 65 years or older (that is, more than 30% of the population in this age group) have hearing loss that interferes with understanding normal conversational speech.2 High-quality, national and local epidemiological data on hearing loss, however, are generally lacking and this scarcity contributes to low awareness of the problem.3
The report contains the best available scientific evidence about strategies to reduce the incidence of spinalcord injury, particularly from traumatic causes. The report also discusses how the health system can respond effectively to people who are injured. Finally, the report discusses how personal adjustment and relationships can be supported, how barriers in the environmentcan be removed, and how individuals with spinal cord injury can gain access to schools, universities and workplaces.
More than 1.2 million people die each year on the world’s roads, making road traffic injuries a leading cause of death globally. Most of these deaths are in low- and middle-income countries where rapid economic growth has been accompanied by increased motorization and road traffic injuries. As well as being a public health problem, road traffic injuries are a development issue: low- and middleincome countries lose approximately 3% of GDP as a result of road traffic crashes.
The Global status report on road safety 2018, launched by WHO in December 2018, highlights that the number of annual road traffic deaths has reached 1.35 million. Road traffic injuries are now the leading killer of people aged 5-29 years. The burden is disproportionately borne by pedestrians, cyclists and motorcyclists, in particular those living in developing countries. The report suggests that the price paid for mobility is too high, especially because proven measures exist. Drastic action is needed to put these measures in place to meet any future global target that might be set and save lives.
