Resources

National health facility infrastructure and medical device standards (also referred to as health facility standards) are a set of guidelines on infrastructure and medical device specifications recommended in each health facility level in a country. The standards are often designed to help ministry of health (MOH) and hospital officials understand what each level of health facility should look like in a country, and can be used when opening new health facilities, certifying existing health facilities, or comparing facilities to a set standard.This guide provides recommendations on how to create or improve high-quality, country-specific resources that outline health facility infrastructure and medical device requirements across different levels of the health system. Evaluating a country’s existing health facility standards alongside this guide may lead to improvements in equipment availability, ultimately helping to increase access to medical oxygen and pulse oximetry (as well as other medical devices) across all levels of the health system.This tool is part of the Oxygen Delivery Toolkit: Resources to plan and scale medical oxygen. The materials provided within the toolkit can be used together or separately, as needed. The complete toolkit is available at www.path.org/oxygen-delivery-toolkit.

This year’s annual report features our annual financial overview, PATH’s leadership, list of PATH’s funders and supporters and our accomplishments in 2019.

The Roll Back Malaria (RBM) Monitoring and Evaluation Reference Group (MERG) has published guidance for malaria surveillance, monitoring, and evaluation during the COVID-19 pandemic, Monitoring and Evaluation of Malaria-related Routine Data During the COVID-19 Pandemic. The document can be found on the RBM MERG website linked here.

Since 2017, the Democratic republic of Congo (DRC) has worked to halt an outbreak of vaccine-derived polio virus type 2 (cVDPV2) in several of its South-Eastern provinces. Low immunity of children in Haut-Lomami, Tanganyika, and Lualaba provinces is indicative of low routine immunization coverage and the risk of the spread of polio to other areas. These three provinces represent some of the lowest immunization coverage rates in the country and the importance of strengthening these health systems.PATH and partners are working to contribute to the interruption of cVDPV2 transmission in DRC by improving the quality of the outbreak response and ensuring sustainable routine immunization financing and immunization systems are strengthened through policy advocacy activities. This newsletter is produced quarterly to highlight program work related to these objectives.

With the onset of COVID-19, advocates around the world are faced with the challenge of acclimating to a rapidly evolving public health landscape spurred by a pandemic. All hands are on deck to solve the pressing matters of the pandemic while also maintaining focus on closing the equity gaps in access to health services. Meanwhile, physical constraints pose limits to the tactics advocates can pursue. How must our traditional advocacy approaches shift to effectively advocate in today’s ‘new normal’?With the aim of catalyzing conversations and exchanging of best practices among health advocates, PATH is hosting a virtual learning series on advocating in this new normal. During the series, we are bringing together perspectives from across the African continent to reflect upon what is working and how we are evolving the practice of advocacy for health.