Publications

Contraceptive prevalence, a measure that represents the proportion of women who currently use a contraceptive method, does not take into account the duration or interruption of use, or changes in method, which have an impact on the effectiveness of contraceptive use. Using data from the 2014 Cambodia Demographic and Health survey, this study estimated rates of contraceptive discontinuation, failure, and switching, including reasons for discontinuation, among married women age 15-49, and estimated the associations with selected socioeconomic and demographic characteristics. The study found that one in every four women surveyed discontinued their contraceptive method during the first year of use. The two most commonly cited reasons for discontinuation were desire to become pregnant and health concerns with the method, while cost or access were rarely reported as reasons for discontinuation.

This report explores issues related to fertility among young women age 15-19 and to abortion among women age 15-49 in Cambodia, based on two Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) conducted in 2010 and 2014. In 2014, approximately one in every eight young Cambodian women age 15-19 either already had a live birth or were currently pregnant with their first child. Teenage fertility increased from 8% in 2010 to 12% in 2014. In general, teenage fertility in Cambodia rises with increasing age, lower household wealth, and lower levels of education. 

The purpose of this information note is to support civil society and community groups to design and include community systems strengthening interventions and community-based monitoring activities in funding requests during the 2017-2019 Global Fund funding cycle. This information will be of interest to community groups, key population networks, country coordination mechanism (CCM) members, ministries of health, disease program managers, and health service providers.

This report reflects a new era for the UN. It offers practical solutions to transforming the way the Joint Programme works. As the UN charts out its reform agenda, this report provides the first organizational effort to translate the directions set out in the Quadrennial Comprehensive Policy Review into specific, actionable recommendations on financing, joint working, and accountability. But these recommendations should not stop at the door of the Joint Programme, we encourage Member States as well as our colleagues across the UN Development system to consider these recommendations as they take their own steps towards organizational repositioning, as together, we build a UN fit for purpose in leading the world to achieve the vision of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, including to leave no one behind.

TB is preventable and completely curable–yet about 710 000 people died of TB in 2015. Incomplete treatment can lead to drug-resistant TB over 200 000 people got DR-TB in 2015. Malnutrition, smoking and diabetes aggravate TB. TB thrives in poverty. It also creates poverty; the poor have a five-time higher chance of getting TB. This is the second SEAR TB Report as we take first steps into the post 2015 era of the SDGs. In 2015, there was an estimated 4.74 million incidence of TB in the SEA Region, including HIV+TB co-infection. The total number of new cases notified to National TB programmes in the Region were around 2.65 million in appear staggering despite a reasonably good performance. Three countries that are poised well to eliminating TB by 2030 are Maldives, Bhutan and Sri Lanka. Nepal too is doing well despite the twin challenges of its mountainous terrain and coping with a major natural disaster. Timor-Leste, though small in terms of absolute TB numbers, faces a major challenge in bringing down its incidence rate.

This WHO Global hepatitis report describes, for the first time, the global and regional estimates on viral hepatitis in 2015, setting the baseline for tracking progress in implementing the new global strategy. The report focuses on hepatitis B and C, which are responsible for 96% of all hepatitis mortality. It presents data along the five strategic directions (strategic information, interventions, equity, financing and innovation) – key pillars of the GHSS to facilitate monitoring of progress in countries, regions and globally, and to measure the impact of interventions on reducing new infections and saving lives between 2015 and 2030.

This policy paper shows how countries and stakeholders can take resolute actions to promote the R&D required to successfully reach the SDG target of ending the TB epidemic by 2030. The paper concludes by recommending steps governments and other stakeholders can take at the national and international levels to create research-enabling environments and increase funding for TB research; namely, the creation of a global strategy for TB R&D and the deployment of innovative, collaborative financing mechanisms.

Tuberculosis (TB) remains the largest cause of death and suffering due to any communicable disease among the most productive groups in the World Health Organization’s South-East Asia Region. Nearly half of global TB cases emerge in this Region, which is home to one fourth of the total population. It is estimated that TB and TB-HIV co-infection caused 3 deaths every 2 minutes in the Region in 2015. These deaths were entirely preventable with proper treatment of all TB patients, including those infected with drug-resistant strains. The WHO End TB strategy and corresponding Regional Strategic Plan to end TB targets reductions to the extent of 90% in deaths, and 80% in TB incidence by 2030. This is in alignment with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to which all countries have committed.

This report highlights the key results achieved over Phase II of the Maternal Health Thematic Fund (MHTF), from 2014 to 2016, structured around the three cross-cutting principles of accountability, equality of access and quality of care, as outlined in the MHTF Business Plan Phase II (2014-2017). The report foregrounds the MHTF’s role in supporting health systems strengthening, and addresses its catalytic nature, its promotion of sustainability and its strong emphasis on advancing innovation. A vision and direction are outlined for the third phase of the MHTF, which will be further elaborated in a forthcoming Business Plan Phase III (2018-2021).

This document provides key considerations on when clinically stable children, adolescents and women who are pregnant or breastfeeding as well as members of key populations (people who inject drugs, sex workers, men who have sex with men, transgender people and people living in prisons and closed settings) can benefit from access to ART services for clinically stable clients, including less frequent clinic visits and multi-month refills for ART and other medications. The guidance provides the rationale and the approach to expand differentiated ART delivery to populations of people living with HIV who previously may not have been considered “eligible” for ART delivery models for clinically stable clients.