High-level Global Talk Show: Towards a “Hepatitis-free future”

On 28 July, WHO will celebrate World Hepatitis Day 2020 under the theme “Hepatitis-free future” and launch the new recommendations for the prevention of mother-to-child transmission of the hepatitis B virus (HBV).

Join high-level speakers and experts from WHO, member states, key partners and civil society to hear about the progress towards elimination of viral hepatitis as a public health threat.

High-level speakers will include:

·   Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General

·   Her Excellency Mrs Sika Kaboré, First Lady of Burkina Faso

·   Dr Kalumbi Shangula, Minister of Health and Social Services, Namibia

·   Dr Osagie Ehanire, Minister of Health, Nigeria

·   Mrs Amira El Fadil, African Union Commissioner for Social Affairs

·   Dr Alioune Coulibaly, Board of World Hepatitis Alliance

·   Dr Tshidi Moeti, WHO Regional Director for Africa

·   Dr Poonam Khetrapal Singh WHO Regional Director for South-East Asia

·   Dr Ren Minghui, WHO Assistant Director-General Universal Health Coverage/Communicable and Noncommunicable Diseases

Topics include:

·   Progress and challenges towards prevention of mother-to-child transmission of hepatitis B in the WHO African Region and globally.

·   Service disruptions and impact on hepatitis services due to the COVID-19 pandemic

·   Highlights from all WHO regions towards viral hepatitis elimination

·   Highlights of the new WHO guidelines on the prevention of mother-to-child transmission of the hepatitis B virus.

Webinar: Achieving health equity: providing skilled breastfeeding support universally

In this webinar sponsored by the Global Breastfeeding Collective, WHO and UNICEF, key global leaders will discuss why investment in skilled breastfeeding support is essential to achieving equitable health outcomes. The audience will hear from funders, implementing organizations and national government level leaders.

The webinar will be conducted in English with simultaneous interpretation in French, Spanish, Arabic, and Russian. 

Date: 5 August 2020

Time: 13:00 - 14:30 UTC (9:00 New York, 15:00 Geneva, 16:00 Nairobi, 18:00 Islamabad, 20:00 Tokyo)

Speakers include:

Moderators

Dr Victor Aguayo, Associate Director, Programme Division, Chief, Nutrition Programme, United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF)

Dr Francesco Branca, Director, Department of Nutrition and Food Safety, World Health Organization (WHO)

Speakers

Dr France Begin, Senior Advisor, Early Childhood Nutrition, UNICEF

Ms Mudiwah Kadeshe, President, International Lactation Consultant Association

Mrs Juliana Abdul Razak, Breastfeeding mother, Malaysia

Her Excellency Mrs Samina Alvi, First Lady of Pakistan

Dr Laurence Grummer-Strawn, Unit Head, Department of Nutrition and Food Safety, World Health Organization

Dr Amy E. Pollack, Director, Maternal, Newborn & Child Health, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

Ms Helga Fogstad, Executive Director, Partnership for Maternal, Newborn and Child Health

Dr Steve Wall, Senior Director, Newborn Health, Save the Children

Dr Alma Golden, Assistant Administrator for the Bureau for Global Health, United States Agency for International Development

Her Excellency Mrs Rebecca Akufo-Addo, First Lady of Ghana

Seventh advanced course on health financing for universal coverage for low- and middle-income countries

PLEASE NOTE THAT GIVEN THE CURRENT SITUATION WITH RESPECT TO COVID-19, WHO IS CURRENTLY REVIEWING WHETHER & IF SO, HOW & WHEN THIS COURSE WILL BE HELD.

CURRENTLY WE ARE LOOKING AT THE POSSIBILITY OF DEVELOPING A FACILITATED ONLINE VERSION OF THIS COURSE

Course announcement

The Seventh WHO Advanced course on health financing for universal coverage for low- and middle-income countries, was planned to be held from 21-25 September 2020 in Geneva, Switzerland. This week-long advanced training program is organized by WHO’s Health Financing Policy team based in Geneva with selected contributions from global experts.

Who is the course for?

The course is designed for policy makers, advisors and analysts in the health and social sectors, senior managers of service provider organizations and health insurance funds, and other relevant actors in government (e.g. Ministries of Finance, Parliamentarians), the private sector and civil society. This is an advanced course and participants are expected to have extensive and relevant work experience and knowledge of health financing policy, and previous training in health systems and policy (e.g. participation in a Flagship Course).

This course is delivered exclusively in English.

Course content

The course is structured in line with WHO’s approach to thinking and analyzing health financing policy and its role in improving health system performance, in particular making progress towards universal health coverage. During the course, participants will be able to apply WHO approach to analyze and reflect on their own health systems performance, assess the problems it faces, and discuss ideas with professionals from a wide range of countries. The course which is organized around the following core health financing functions or topics:

Raising revenues – strategic issues for policy makers

Pooling health revenues – minimizing fragmentation to maximize performance

Purchasing – more health for the money through payment reforms

Benefit design – considering equity, efficiency, financial protection and transparency

Health financing and public finance management – addressing bottlenecks

Coordinating reform – aligning multiple policy instruments with system goals

Faculty

The faculty comprises both core trainers and guest keynote speakers, reflecting a diverse experience in health financing policy:

Core training team

Joseph Kutzin, Head of Health Financing Policy Team, WHO Geneva

Matthew Jowett, Senior Health Financing Specialist, WHO Geneva

Helene Barroy, Senior Health Financing Specialist, WHO Geneva

Cheryl Cashin, Managing Director, Results for Development Institute

Keynote speakers

Previous keynote speakers include: Eduardo Gonzalez Pier (Visiting Fellow at the Center for Global Development, former Deputy Minister of Health, Mexico), Viroj Tangcharoensathien (Senior Advisor, Ministry of Health, Thailand), Professor Diane McIntyre (School of Public Health and Family Medicine at the University of Cape Town), Professor Sarah Bennett (Johns Hopkins School of Public Health), and Dr. Agnès Soucat (Director for Health Systems Governance and Financing at WHO Geneva).

This year’s Keynote Speakers will be announced closer to the course.

Applications and deadlines

Please check this webpage for updates as we review the situation and its implication for holding the course on the planned dates.

Costs and registration fee

There is no tuition or registration fee to attend the course.

WHO covers all costs related to the organization of the training course, including provision of course materials, drink and snacks breaks (morning and afternoon), and a midday meal on each of the five days of the course, plus one evening dinner reception.

Participants are responsible for organizing all other costs i.e. travel, accommodation, and other subsistence costs while attending the course. WHO will make recommendations with respect to accommodation.

Visa

Applicants are responsible for obtaining a visa, if required, to enter Switzerland. A formal invitation and visa support letter will be provided by WHO. Please note that obtaining a visa may require several weeks. Applicants are advised to confirm as early as possible the application process and likely timeframe with their nearest visa issuing authority.

Contact

Any queries regarding the application process should be sent by email to: hfcourse@who.int

World Patient Safety Day 2020

On 17 September 2020, the World Health Organization, international partners and all countries will celebrate World Patient Safety Day.

World Patient Safety Day was established by the 72nd World Health Assembly, in May 2019, with the adoption of resolution WHA72.6 on ‘Global action on patient safety’, and an endorsement for the Day to be marked annually on 17 September. World Patient Safety Day builds on a series of successful annual Global Ministerial Summits on Patient Safety, which started in London in 2016.  

The overall objectives of World Patient Safety Day are to enhance global understanding of patient safety, increase public engagement in the safety of health care and promote global actions to enhance patient safety and reduce patient harm. The origin of the Day is firmly grounded in the fundamental principle of medicine – First, do no harm.

The COVID-19 pandemic is presently among the biggest challenges and threats to face the world and humanity, and health care is living its greatest crisis in patient safety ever! The pandemic has exerted unprecedented pressure on health systems worldwide. Health systems can only function with health workers, and a knowledgeable, skilled and motivated health workforce is critical for the provision of safe care to patients.

Objectives of World Patient Safety Day 2020:

• Raise global awareness about the importance of health worker safety and its interlinkages with patient safety
• Engage multiple stakeholders and adopt multimodal strategies to improve the safety of health workers and patients
• Implement urgent and sustainable actions by all stakeholders which recognize and invest in the safety of health workers, as a priority for patient safety
• Provide due recognition of health workers’ dedication and hard work, particularly amid the current fight against COVID-19

Call for action

WHO urges all stakeholders to “Speak up for health worker safety!"

The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the huge challenges health workers are currently facing globally. Working in stressful environments exacerbates safety risks for health workers, including being infected and contributing to outbreaks in the health care facility, having limited access or adherence to personal protective equipment and other infection prevention and control measures, and inducing errors which can potentially harm patients and health workers. In many countries, health workers are facing increased risks of infections, violence, accidents, stigma, illness and death.

Illuminate a monument in orange

During these unprecedented times, a combination of virtual and other activities is being planned by WHO to observe and celebrate the Day in September. The signature mark of the global campaign is to light up iconic monuments, landmarks, and public places in orange colour, in collaboration with local authorities. This will also be a gesture of respect and gratitude to all health workers.

WHO Webinar on Collection of COVID-19 Convalescent Plasma

28 July 2020 15:00 – 16:30 UTC Time

The COVID-19 pandemic has adversely affected the supply of blood and blood components in many countries through reduction in blood donations and disruption of routine practices in blood establishments. Blood services throughout the world must move quickly in response to the pandemic to maintain blood sufficiency for critical patient needs, ideally through development, implementation and activation of emergency response plans in cooperation with hospitals. Meanwhile, COVID-19 convalescent plasma can be made available on an experimental basis through local production provided that ethical and safety criteria are met for its preparation and use. Blood systems that provide COVID-19 convalescent plasma must ensure that blood establishments have sufficient capability to safely collect, process and store these special products in a quality-assured manner in compliance with WHO and other internationally recognized standards for plasma for transfusion.

WHO provided interim guidance on “Maintaining a safe and adequate blood supply during the pandemic outbreak of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) on 20 March 2020.  More recently, on 10 July 2020, WHO published updated interim guidance entitled “Guidance on maintaining a safe and adequate blood supply during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic and on the collection of COVID-19 convalescent plasma.” Compared with the earlier version, the updated interim guidance provides greater details on management of the blood supply and expanded recommendations on collection of COVID-19 convalescent plasma. The BTT organized webinar on 28 July 2020 will include a presentation on the “Scientific rationale and clinical experience with experimental treatment with COVID-19 convalescent plasma” and a summary of the 10 July 2020 WHO interim guidance.