While iron deficiency anaemia is the most common form and is relatively easy to treat through dietary changes, other forms of anaemia require health interventions that may be less accessible. Accurate characterisation of anaemia is critical to understand the burden and epidemiology of this problem, for planning public health interventions, and for clinical care of people across the life course.
Anaemia is a condition in which the number of red blood cells or the haemoglobin concentration within them is lower than normal. Haemoglobin is needed to carry oxygen and if you have too few or abnormal red blood cells, or not enough haemoglobin, there will be a decreased capacity of the blood to carry oxygen to the body’s tissues. This results in symptoms such as fatigue, weakness, dizziness and shortness of breath, among others. The optimal haemoglobin concentration needed to meet physiologic needs varies by age, sex, elevation of residence, smoking habits and pregnancy status.
WHO works with Member States, UN agencies and diverse stakeholders from various sectors to foster healthy ageing in every country. Healthy ageing is defined as developing and maintaining the functional ability that enables well-being in older age. Functional ability is determined by the intrinsic capacity of an individual (i.e. an individual’s physical and mental capacities), the environment in which he or she lives (understood in the broadest sense and including physical, social and policy environments) and the interactions among them.
WHO actively promotes breastfeeding as the best source of nourishment for infants and young children, and is working to increase the rate of exclusive breastfeeding for the first 6 months up to at least 50% by 2025.
WHO and UNICEF created the Global Breastfeeding Collective to rally political, legal, financial, and public support for breastfeeding. The Collective brings together implementers and donors from governments, philanthropies, international organizations, and civil society.
WHO and UNICEF recommend that children initiate breastfeeding within the first hour of birth and be exclusively breastfed for the first 6 months of life – meaning no other foods or liquids are provided, including water.
Infants should be breastfed on demand – that is as often as the child wants, day and night. No bottles, teats or pacifiers should be used.
From the age of 6 months, children should begin eating safe and adequate complementary foods while continuing to breastfeed for up to 2 years and beyond.
The global burden of neurological and neurodevelopmental conditions is high, with approximately 70% of the burden in low- and middle-income countries. Neurological conditions are the leading cause of disability adjusted life years (DALYs) and the second leading cause of death globally, accounting for 9 million deaths per year.
Brain Health is an emerging and growing concept that encompasses neural development, plasticity, functioning, and recovery across the life course.
Donated blood is used in many ways beyond whole blood transfusions. Processing can convert it into plasma, red cell concentrates, platelet concentrates and more, with each used for specific cases in health-care delivery. In some cases, this allows a unit of donated blood to meet the needs of more than one patient and is an important aspect of the transfusion train. However, not all countries have facilities to process blood in this way, and only 50 of 173 reporting countries produce plasma-derived medicinal products domestically.
Nearly 120 million units of blood are donated every year. However, this is not sufficient to meet the global need many patients requiring a transfusion do not have timely access to safe blood. Blood cannot be stored indefinitely, meaning there is a constant need for donations. Regular donations are required to ensure there is always a supply for those in need. Despite global need, donation rates differ around the world and some high-income countries see up to seven times more donations than low-income countries.
The WHO Action framework to advance universal access to safe, effective and quality-assured blood products 2020–2023 aims to provide strategic direction to global efforts to address present barriers to the safety and availability of blood products.
Working with Member States and partners, WHO aims to achieve universal access to safe, effective and quality assured blood products through the Framework’s 6 strategic objectives. The objectives focus on:
Blood products contribute to the saving of millions of lives every year, improve dramatically life expectancy and the quality of life of patients suffering from life-threatening conditions, and support complex medical and surgical procedures.
A blood product is any therapeutic substance derived from human blood, including whole blood and other blood components for transfusion, and plasma-derived medicinal products.
Medicinal (medical therapeutic) products derived from human donations of blood and plasma play a critical role in health care. Safe, effective and quality-assured blood products contribute to improving and saving millions of lives every year, as they:
Eye conditions that can be targeted effectively with preventive strategies include myopia, ocular trauma and the majority of infectious eye diseases. In addition, the prevention or management of systemic disease, such as diabetes, can be effective in reducing the risk of ocular diseases.
For example, preventative lifestyle changes among children, including a combination of increased time spent outdoors and decreased near-work activities, can delay the onset and slow the progression of myopia which reduces the risk of high myopia and its complications
WHO works with Member States, Collaborating Centres, partners and experts through its biological standardization programme to develop and revise guidance on biotherapeutic products and to establish international reference standards. The guidelines produced are promoted through their publication on the WHO website, as well as through workshops and training sessions to facilitate their implementation. This outreach has proved valuable in promoting WHO recommendations that promote international harmonization of guidance for biological therapeutics.
Biological therapeutics, also referred to as Biologicals, are those class of medicines which are grown and then purified from large-scale cell cultures of bacteria or yeast, or plant or animal cells. Biologicals are a diverse group of medicines which includes vaccines, growth factors, immune modulators, monoclonal antibodies, as well as products derived from human blood and plasma.