World Health Organization Archives

The ‘Nuggets’ of Knowledge (NoK) platform: How past experiential health emergency knowledge can inform future responses

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NoK health emergency knowledge can inform future responses

The knowledge gained during the COVID-19 pandemic and other health emergencies could prove invaluable for devising responses to and planning for future health crises. Dr Landry Ndriko Mayigane and Dr Stella Chungong from the Health Security Preparedness Department of the World Health Organization’s Health Emergency Programme recently devised the ‘Nuggets’ of Knowledge (NoK) platform, an open-source platform, to facilitate effective […]

WHO moves mpox response to the next level

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Mpox is an infectious disease caused by the monkeypox virus (MPXV). Outbreaks result from person-to-person spread through close contact, which may include sexual contact. In some settings outbreaks follow contact with an infected animal or consumption of contaminated meat. The World Health Organization (WHO) has released a new Strategic Framework for enhancing prevention and control of mpox in order to […]

Early Action Review: Preventing local outbreaks from becoming pandemics

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Landry-Ndriko-Mayigane-Stella-Chungong Photo Credit: © WHO / Lehlohonolo Koekoe

If we are to avoid the fallout of another global pandemic, we need to be better prepared. Dr Stella Chungong and Dr Landry Ndriko Mayigane of the Health Security Preparedness Department in the World Health Organization’s Health Emergencies Programme are encouraging countries to implement early action reviews (EARs) of disease outbreaks. EARs are based on a 7-1-7 metric to assess […]

Scientific communication: Learning from the COVID-19 ‘Infodemic’

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The COVID-19 pandemic has taken place in an age of rapid digital communication. Scientific voices can become lost in the noise. Worse, some were not accessible to the general public in the first place. On 7th December 2020, Project ECHO held a Global Series webinar: “COVID-19 global learning collaborative – science and the response to the COVID-19 ‘infodemic’”. The goal […]

Climate change impacts the transmission of vector-borne diseases

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Climate change is responsible for changes in temperature and rainfall patterns as well as more frequent extreme events such as floods. These changes may cause insect displacements to regions that are more favourable to them. This can prove to be problematic for local human populations as some of these insects carry diseases: vector-borne diseases are illnesses caused by parasites, viruses […]