World Health Organization

WHO Guidelines on Physical Activity and Sedentary Behaviour

Global Action Plan for the Prevention and Control of Noncommunicable Diseases

Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations 

World Organisation for Animal Health

Zoonotic diseases, i.e. those affecting animals and humans, need a different, holistic approach to risk assessment engaging all sectors involved in their management and control. Joint Risk Assessment (JRA) brings these sectors together to assess risks from zoonotic disease threats at the animal-human-environmental interface jointly. The JRA operational tool is part of the Tripartite Zoonoses Guide and is intended for use by staff from national ministries responsible for human health, animal health, and the environment, or other government agencies that are responsible for the control and management of zoonotic diseases, in particular epidemiologists, with the close involvement of laboratory staff, risk managers and communication officers. The operational tool presents the principles of JRA and its role in informing policy development. It provides guidance on how to set up a joint qualitative risk assessment process and describes step-by-step how to conduct each component of the process. The Annexes include model documents and templates to support implementation. A JRA provides decision-makers with scientifically sound advice that can be used to inform risk management and communication policies for an effective response to a zoonotic disease threat. Routine JRA supports international regulations, such as International Health Regulations and the OIE standards, by providing a mechanism to effectively address management decisions and communications based on a JRA. When done jointly and across the spectrum of different sectors they are more likely to be relevant and acceptable to all stakeholders, and therefore also more likely to be effective.

An Operational Tool of the Tripartite Zoonoses Guide – Taking a Multisectoral, One Health Approach: A Tripartite Guide to Addressing Zoonotic Diseases in Countries

Joint Risk Assessment Operational Tool (JRA OT): An Operational Tool of the Tripartite Zoonoses Guide – Taking a Multisectoral, One Health Approach: A Tripartite Guide to Addressing Zoonotic Diseases in Countries

WHO Staff

Provides clinical descriptions diagnostic guidelines and codes for all mental and behavioural disorders commonly encountered in clinical psychiatry. The book was developed from chapter V of the Tenth Revision of the International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems (ICD-10). The clinical descriptions and diagnostic guidelines were finalized after field testing by over 700 clinicians and researchers in 110 institutes in 40 countries making this book the product of the largest ever research effort designed to improve psychiatric diagnosis. Every effort has been made to define categories whose existence is scientifically justifiable as well as clinically useful. The classification divides disorders into ten groups according to major common themes or descriptive likeness a new feature which makes for increased convenience of use. For each disorder the book provides a full description of the main clinical features and all other important but less specific associated features. Diagnostic guidelines indicate the number balance and duration of symptoms usually required before a confident diagnosis can be made. Inclusion and exclusion criteria are also provided together with conditions to be considered in differential diagnosis. The guidelines are worded so that a degree of flexibility is retained for diagnostic decisions in clinical work particularly in the situation where provisional diagnosis may have to be made before the clinical picture is entirely clear or information is complete. ... As befitting a publication of considerable influence the amount of work that went into preparing ICD-10 has been formidable... - The International Journal of Social Psychiatry

Clinical Descriptions and Diagnostic Guidelines

The ICD-10 Classification of Mental and Behavioural Disorders

Joint FAO/WHO Expert Committee on Food Additives. Meeting

The toxicological monographs in this volume summarize the safety data on a number of food additives: asparaginase from Aspergillus niger expressed in A. niger, calcium lignosulfonate (40-65), ethyl lauroyl arginate, paprika extract, phospholipase C expressed in Pichia pastoris, phytosterols, phytostanols and their esters, polydimethylsiloxane and steviol glycosides. A monograph on the assessment of dietary exposure to sulfites is also included. Monographs on 10 groups of related flavoring agents evaluated by the Procedure for the Safety Evaluation of Flavouring Agents are also included. This volume also contains a monograph on incorporating the single portion exposure technique (SPET) into the Procedure for the Safety Evaluation of Flavouring Agents in the dietary exposure assessment of flavoring agents. This volume and others in the WHO Food Additives Series contain information that is useful to those who produce and use food additives and veterinary drugs and those involved with controlling contaminants in food, government and food regulatory officers, industrial testing laboratories, toxicological laboratories and universities.

Safety Evaluation of Certain Food Additives

This guideline provides global, evidence-based recommendations on the use of safety-engineered injection devices to prevent the re-use of syringes and/or prevent needle-stick injuries in health care workers (HCWs). The ultimate aim is to make injection practices safer for patients and HCWs, and to prevent the injection-related transmission of deadly viruses, particularly HIV, hepatitis C and hepatitis B. The procedures covered are intramuscular (IM), intradermal (ID) and subcutaneous (SC) injections, including the syringes needed for the reconstitution of medication or vaccines when required. Other procedures, such as intravenous injections and infusions, blood collection for laboratory testing, and capillary blood sampling, will be covered by another guideline to be issued separately by WHO. The policy recommendation aims to support Member States (MS) and development partners in making informed decisions on the appropriateness of introducing safety-engineered syringes for all injections in health care settings.

WHO Guideline on the Use of Safety-Engineered Syringes for Intramuscular, Intradermal and Subcutaneous Injections in Health Care Settings

The main purpose of these recommendations is to assist national and local public health tuberculosis (TB) control programmes in low- and middle-income countries to develop and implement case finding among people exposed to infectious cases of TB. Systematic evaluation of people who have been exposed to potentially infectious cases of tuberculosis (TB) can be an efficient, targeted approach to intensified TB case finding that is within the purview of TB control programmes. There are, however, no comprehensive global recommendations for programmes. WHO, the International Union against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease and the International Standards for Tuberculosis Care all recommend that children under 5 years of age and persons living with HIV (PLHIV) who are exposed to infectious cases of TB be evaluated for active TB and considered for treatment of latent tuberculosis infection (LTBI) if active TB is excluded. With these exceptions, there are no recommendations at global level to: 1. define the epidemiological and programme conditions under which contact investigation is indicated;2. describe TB index patients on whom contact investigation should be focused;3. identify TB contacts who should be investigated (other than children under 5 years of age and PLHIV);and recommend the procedures to be used for identifying, screening and tracking TB contacts. The following recommendations are based on recent systematic reviews of the literature on contact investigation in low- and middle-income countries.

Recommendations for Investigating Contacts of Persons with Infectious Tuberculosis in Low- and Middle-Income Countries

Mental health and psychosocial support (MHPSS) is a term used to describe a wide range of actions that address social, psychological and psychiatric problems that are either pre-existing or emergency-induced. These actions are carried out in highly different contexts by organizations and people with different professional backgrounds, in different sectors and with different types of resources. All these different actors--and their donors--need practical assessments leading to recommendations that can be used immediately to improve people's mental health and well-being. Although a range of assessment tools exist, what has been missing is an overall approach that clarifies when to use which tool for what purpose. This document offers an approach to assessment that should help you review information that is already available and only collect new data that will be of practical use, depending on your capacity and the phase of the humanitarian crisis. This document is rooted in two policy documents, the IASC Reference Group s (2010) "Mental Health and Psychosocial Support in Humanitarian Emergencies: What Should Humanitarian Health Actors Know?" and the "Sphere Handbook's Standard on Mental Health" (Sphere Project, 2011). It is written primarily for public health actors. As the social determinants of mental health and psychosocial problems occur across sectors, half of the tools in the accompanying toolkit cover MHPSS assessment issues relevant to other sectors as well as the health sector.

Toolkit for Humanitarian Settings

Assessing Mental Health and Psychosocial Needs and Resources

Vandepitte J.

J. Verhaegen

Engbaek K.

Piot P.

Rohner P.

C. C. Heuck

The 2nd edition of this publication updates the various guidelines produced by the World Health Organization on the sampling of specimens for laboratory investigation, identification of bacteria and the testing of antibiotic resistance, focusing on quality control and assessment procedures to be followed rather than on basic techniques of microscopy and staining. The publication is split into two parts: part one deals with bacteriological investigations regarding blood, cerebrospinal fluid, urine, stools, upper and lower respiratory tract infections, sexually transmitted diseases, purulent exudates, wounds and absesses, anaerobic bacteriology, antimicrobial susceptibility testing and serological tests; and part two considers key pathogens, media and diagnostic reagents.

Basic Laboratory Procedures in Clinical Bacteriology

Robert Henri Regamey

W. Hennessen

International Association of Biological Standardization

Proceedings of the 52nd Symposium

Joint WHO/IABS Symposium on the Standardization of Rabies Vaccines for Human Use Produced in Tissue Culture (Rabies III)

"The International Classification of Diseases for Oncology" (ICD-O) has been used for nearly 25 years as the standard tool for coding diagnoses of neoplasms in tumor and cancer registrars and in pathology laboratories. ICD-O is a dual classification with coding systems for both topography and morphology. The topography code describes the site of origin of the neoplasm and uses the same 3-character and 4-character categories as in the neoplasm section of Chapter II, ICD-10. The morphology code describes the characteristics of the tumor itself, including its cell type and biologic activity.In preparing this revised edition, the editors have made a special effort to change as few terms as possible, to add new terms at empty spaces, and to avoid reuse of previously assigned codes. While all topography codes remain the same as in the previous edition, morphology codes have been thoroughly reviewed and, where necessary, revised to increase their diagnostic precision and prognostic value.

International Classification of Diseases for Oncology

Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations 

A Joint Meeting of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) Panel of experts on Pesticide Residues in Food and the Environment and the World Health Organization (WHO) Core assessment Group on Pesticide Residues (JMPR) was held in Rome, Italy, from 12 to 22 September 2019. The FAO Panel Members met in preparatory sessions from 8 to 12 September.

Joint FAO/WHO Meeting on Pesticide Residues

Evaluation 2022 part I – Residues. Pesticides residues in food

Handbook of Resolutions and Decisions of the World Health Assembly and the Executive Board

Bulletin de L'Organisation Mondiale de la Santé

Bulletin of the World Health Organization

Annuaire de Statistiques Sanitaires Mondiales

World Health Statistics Annual

Annual epidemiological and vital statistics

This book provides comprehensive guidelines for the design, implementation, and interpretation of preclinical studies and clinical trials of agents undergoing investigation for the management of osteoporosis. Noting the magnitude of the public health problem caused by osteoporosis and related fractures, the book responds to the urgent need for a cohesive and rational approach to the search for new therapeutic or preventive agents. Recommended principles and methods reflect the consensus reached by a large number of international experts, representatives of the pharmaceutical industry, and drug regulatory authorities. The book opens with a brief discussion of the current and future public health problem caused by osteoporotic fractures, followed by conceptual and operational definitions of osteoporosis and a recommended classification of four intervention categories that facilitate the definition of treatment objectives and the design of targetted studies. Against this background, the next chapter offers a detailed guide to the aims, design, conduct and interpretation of preclinical studies. Specific recommendations are given for the selection of in vitro and animal models, the design of the study, including dose ranges and duration of treatment, and the most appropriate end-points for assessing efficacy. The most extensive chapter provides a comprehensive description of basic principles and methods to follow during clinical trials. Information ranges from a discussion of problems with the use of bone mineral density to predict fracture risk, through advice on the choice of tests and techniques for measuring the effects of interventions, to a discussion of general principles of trial design, including selection of study population, treatment regimen, duration of studies, sample size, and frequency of measurement. Drawing on these detailed principles and methods, subsequent chapters offer concise guidance specific to phase I and phase II studies, phase III studies in severe osteoporosis, phase III studies in osteoporosis without fragility fractures, and phase III studies in osteopenia. The book concludes with chapters outlining principles and methods for phase III clinical trials in subjects with normal bone mass, and for phase IV studies.

Guidelines for Preclinical Evaluation and Clinical Trials in Osteoporosis

WHO Expert Committee on Specifications for Pharmaceutical Preparations. Meeting

The World Health Organization (WHO) Expert Committee on Specifications for Pharmaceutical Preparations advises the Director-General of WHO in the area of medicines quality assurance. It provides independent expert recommendations and guidance to ensure that medicines meet standards of quality safety and efficacy in all WHO Member States. Its advice is developed through a broad consensus-building process and covers all areas of quality assurance of medicines from their development to their distribution to patients. In the area of quality control the Expert Committee reviewed new and revised specifications and general texts for inclusion in The International Pharmacopoeia and received the annual report of the European Directorate for the Quality of Medicines & HealthCare (EDQM) the custodian centre for International Chemical Reference Substances (ICRS). The Committee adopted a number of monographs general texts and ICRS. It noted the report on Phase 5 of the External Quality Assurance Assessment Scheme (EQAAS) and on new approaches to ensure sustainability of this scheme through user fees. The Committee further received a concept paper on the benefits of good pharmacopoeial practices (GPhP) and was informed of progress achieved with developing a comprehensive document on GPhP through discussions at consecutive international meetings of world pharmacopoeias. In the various quality assurance-related areas the Expert Committee was presented with a number of new and revised guidelines related to good manufacturing practices (GMP) distribution and trade of pharmaceuticals and regulatory practice. It adopted eight guidelines and 16 technical supplements as listed below including a new guidance text on good review practice prepared under the leadership of the Asian-Pacific Economic Cooperation Regulatory Harmonization Steering Committee. The Committee took note of ongoing work to promote collaboration and information exchange through the good regulatory practice project and welcomed the development of a comprehensive set of guidelines for all national regulatory authorities through this project. The report includes the following annexes which are recommended as new WHO guidelines: . Annex 1. Procedure of the development of monographs for inclusion in The International Pharmacopoeia (revision); . Annex 2. Updating mechanism for the section on radiopharmaceuticals in The International Pharmacopoeia (revision); . Annex 3. Supplementary guidelines on good manufacturing practices: validation; Appendix 7: non-sterile process validation (revision); . Annex 4. General guidance for inspectors on hold-time studies (new); . Annex 6. Recommendations for quality requirements when plant-derived artemisinin is used as a starting material in the production of antimalarial active pharmaceutical ingredients (revision); . Annex 7. Guidelines on registration requirements to establish interchangeability (revision); . Annex 8. Guidance on the selection of comparator pharmaceutical products for equivalence assessment of interchangeable multisource (generic) products (revision); . Annex 9: Good review practices guidelines for regulatory authorities (new). In addition 16 technical supplements to the WHO model guidance for the storage and transport of time- and temperature-sensitive pharmaceutical products were adopted for publication in a format which is appropriate to the large volume of this guidance (Annex 5). The newly adopted monographs were adopted for inclusion in The International Pharmacopoeia. Following the implementation of the revised general monograph on parenteral preparations the Committee adopted the proposed endotoxin limits for 11 parenteral dosage form monographs lacking such specification together with related updates to relevant monographs. The Committee adopted 12 ICRS newly characterized by the custodian centre EDQM. The Committee further adopted the workplan for new monographs to be included in The International Pharmacopoeia.

Forty-ninthReport

WHO Expert Committee on Specifications for Pharmaceutical Preparations

"In May 2015, the Sixty-eighth World Health Assembly adopted the Global action plan on antimicrobial resistance, which reflects the global consensus that AMR poses a profound threat to human health. One of the five strategic objectives of the Global action plan is to strengthen the evidence base through enhanced global surveillance and research. The Global Antimicrobial Resistance Surveillance System (GLASS) has been developed to facilitate and encourage a standardized approach to AMR surveillance globally and in turn support the implementation of the Global action plan on antimicrobial resistance. This manual addresses the early phase of implementation of GLASS, focussing on surveillance of resistance in common human bacterial pathogens. The intended readership of this publication is public health professionals and health authorities responsible for national AMR surveillance. It outlines the GLASS standards and describes the road map for implementation of the system between 2015 and 2019. Further development of GLASS will be based on the lessons learnt during this period"--Publisher's description.

Manual for Early Implementation

Global Antimicrobial Resistance Surveillance System

The World Malaria Report 2015assesses global malaria disease trends and changes in the coverage and financing of malaria control programs between 2000 and 2015. It also summarizes progress towards international targets, and provides regional and country profiles that summarize trends in each WHO region and each country with malaria. The report is produced with the help of WHO regional and country offices, ministries of health in endemic countries, and a broad range of other partners. The data presented are assembled from the 96 countries and territories with ongoing malaria transmission, and a further five countries that have recently eliminated malaria. Most data are those reported for 2014 and 2015, although in some cases projections have been made into 2015, to assess progress towards targets for 2015.

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