Existing guidelines for management of diarrhoea are often ignored in public and private practice, possibly because of a perception that the guidelines are too simple, or because of expectations of the need to give ‘real’ drug therapy to stop diarrhoea. This guideline provides a problem-based approach to the basics of present-day management of acute gastroenteritis, and discusses the evidence for the recommendations. The guidelines recommend that each episode of diarrhoea must be seen as an opportunity for caregiver education in the prevention of the illness, in the ‘what’ and ‘how’ of oral rehydration and re-feeding, and in the recognition of when to seek help. The vast majority of patients recover rapidly, but serious complications do occur, and must be recognised and managed correctly. The guidelines are endorsed by the Paediatric Management Group (PMG) in South Africa.
Useful Resources
This toolkit was designed in response to the need for a practical tool to empower communities on what the right to health means, how to identify violations of health rights and how to respond to these violations. The toolkit can be used as a stand-alone source of information or as training tool for workshops on the right to health. Each section uses practical examples to illustrate ideas, and has a number of exercises and case studies that could be used for training purposes. At the end of each chapter is a set of workshop handouts that can be photocopied for participants. Many of these examples are actual cases that emerged from the work of the Learning Network for Health and Human Rights over the past few years. The toolkit is designed for use by civil society organisations (CSOs) such as health committees, NGOs working with health issues, educational institutions, community members or anyone with an interest in health rights.
The African Region of the World Health Organisation (WHO/AFRO) manages this database of medical journals, which has recently increased its share of African medical journals to 156, some with open access. For the full list of these journals, visit the website. Other documents such as medical dissertations/theses and grey literature are also available.
The ICD is the international standard diagnostic classification for all general epidemiological, many health management purposes and clinical use. These include the analysis of the general health situation of population groups and monitoring of the incidence and prevalence of diseases and other health problems in relation to other variables such as the characteristics and circumstances of the individuals affected, reimbursement, resource allocation, quality and guidelines. It is used to classify diseases and other health problems recorded on many types of health and vital records including death certificates and health records. In addition to enabling the storage and retrieval of diagnostic information for clinical, epidemiological and quality purposes, these records also provide the basis for the compilation of national mortality and morbidity statistics by WHO Member States.
In this new blog, Jane Doherty, a researcher and lecturer at the Wits University School of Public Health in South Africa, takes the view that South Africa must move towards a health system that is fair and functional. She discusses the proposed national health insurance (NHI) scheme for South Africa, introducing readers to a range of issues relevant to the new NHI. For example, relevant legislation, in the form of the government’s Green Paper on the NHI is presented, and Doherty discusses the motivations behind the NHI, such as the urgent need to reduce South Africa’s high levels of maternal mortality, and she also considers the employment impact of the NHI, contending that claims that the NHI will cause job losses are unfounded. There are links to Doherty’s research, as well as to other interesting and relevant research.
This tool is a portal that is intended to provide public health practitioners with all the necessary information they need on the social determinants of health (SDH). ACTION:SDH houses knowledge on the SDH and provides a platform for discussion of action on the SDH. The World Health Organisation (WHO) invites everyone in the SDH community to register on ACTION:SDH. WHO is also actively seeking partners interested in collaborating in building up the tool, together with its users. There are three main features: embedded web-pages pages on SDH knowledge relevant to the five action areas for SDH that were identified in the Rio Declaration of October 2011; discussion forums that can be used to share tacit knowledge from practice - either by invitation only, or open to all members; and a document repository that initially is housing selected WHO materials on SDH. Other standard website features also exist, such as an area for advertising upcoming training (Campus) and upcoming meetings (Events).
This document guides policy makers through complex policy options. It looks at access to medicines, trade and innovation together and the effect they have on each other over time and the challenges in the light of a number of developments over the past decade. In terms of manufacturing and product development, public-private partnerships are increasingly emphasised and partnerships for developing health products are ‘coming of age’. More attention is being paid to strengthening national health systems, with more funding for vaccine development and for immunisation. The relationship between public health, the intellectual property system, innovation and access to medical technologies are now better understood. Discussions on international public policy are better informed, and more soundly evidence based, allowing for more coherence across policies in health, trade and intellectual property.
Most international external funders (external funders) are not publishing enough information about the money they give, undermining the effectiveness of development spending and damaging public trust, according to Publish What You Fund’s 2011 Aid Transparency Index. Major external funders - including the United States, Japan, France, Germany, Spain, Norway, Canada, Italy and Australia - perform poorly in the Index, despite repeated pledges to improve. The five best-ranked donors (external funders) are the World Bank, the Global Fund, the African Development Bank, the Netherlands’ Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the United Kingdom’s Department for International Development. Publish What You Fund has expressed disappointment with the results, noting that most external funders are simply not providing enough good information about their aid. It argues that this lack of transparency leads to waste, overlap and inefficiency, impedes efforts to improve governance and reduce corruption and makes it hard to measure results. Publish What You Fund calls on all external funders to sign up to and implement the International Aid Transparency Initiative (IATI), which provides a common standard for publishing data and has the potential to transform the way external funding is managed. It urges external funders to use the upcoming High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness in Korea (29 November – 1 December 2011) to commit to publish timely, comprehensive and comparable information on external funding by 2015.
BioMed, a major open-access medical research provider, has relaunched its website with a number of new features. These include: a redesigned homepage showcasing the most recent and popular published research; new-style journal homepages for the BMC series (e.g. BMC Biology, BMC Cancer); a revamped ‘My BioMed Central’ page, in which you can see the latest articles in your subject areas and easily manage email preferences and stored searches; an updated ‘My manuscripts’ page, with improved display of the status of all your submitted/published manuscripts, and any that you are currently reviewing or have reviewed; and revised ‘Institutional Member’ pages, which now show all articles from a Member institution, not just those from the last 12 months. Other improved features include an ‘Advanced search’ option with additional options for selecting and downloading search results, and subject gateways that offer a quick way to see the latest research from across BioMed Central’s open access journals on a particular topic, while regional gateways showcase research from particular countries.
Improving knowledge management in health systems is a priority of the platform Harmonization for Health in Africa (HHA). Building commonly shared knowledge is at the core of the philosophy of communities of practice. Those within the financing pillar - namely, "Performance-based financing", "Financial Access", "Public-Private Partnerships" and "Evidence-based Budgeting and Planning" are particularly active.
In recent months, their facilitators have found that some lively CoP debates are of broader interest and should be made accessible more widely. This blog was created as a platform to meet this need, to give greater visibility to our CoPs and contribute to consolidating their role and voice in health financing in Africa, to become the reference point for discussions on health financing in Africa.