Resource Library

OpenWHO Courses

OpenWHO aims to equip all frontline responders with the knowledge they need to better contain disease outbreaks and manage health emergencies. It also aims to foster discussions, feedback, and sharing of expert knowledge on public health. Courses include: 

• Knowledge resources for Ebola responders
• Ebola: Clinical management of Ebola virus disease
• Public health interventions in the pandemics and epidemics
• ePROTECT 2018
• Incident Management System
• Seasonal influenza: Clinical management of seasonal influenza
• Crimean-Congo Haemorrhagic Fever: Introduction
• Monkeypox: Introduction

Managing epidemics: Key facts about major deadly diseases

This manual provides concise and up-to-date knowledge on 15 infectious diseases that have the potential to become international threats, and tips on how to respond to each of them.

It includes: Ebola virus disease, lassa fever, Crimean-Congo haemorrhagic fever, yellow fever, Zika, chikungunya, avian and other zoonotic influenza, seasonal influenza, pandemic influenza, Middle-East respiratory syndrome (MERS), cholera, monkeypox, plague, leptospirosis and meningococcal meningitis.

Weekly bulletins on outbreaks and other emergencies

The Bulletin focuses on selected public health emergencies occurring in the African Region. Subscribe to receive weekly updates.

Disease Outbreak News (DONs)

The latest disease outbreaks around the world notified to the World Health Organization.

Weekly Epidemiological Record (WER)

The Weekly Epidemiological Record (WER) serves as an essential instrument for the rapid and accurate dissemination of epidemiological information on cases and outbreaks of diseases under the International Health Regulations and on other communicable diseases of public health importance, including emerging or re-emerging infections. An electronic bilingual English/French version of the WER is accessible every Friday and can be downloaded free of charge.

Alert & Response Operations

WHO continues to track the evolving infectious disease situation, sound the alarm when needed, share expertise, and mount the kind of response needed to protect populations from the consequences of epidemics, whatever and wherever might be their origin.

Definition of skilled health personnel providing care during childbirth

This 2018 joint statement presents the 2018 definition of skilled health personnel providing care during childbirth (also widely known as a “skilled birth attendants” or SBAs) as competent maternal and newborn health (MNH) professionals educated, trained, and regulated to national and international standards. They are competent to: (i) provide and promote evidence-based, human-rights based, quality, socioculturally sensitive and dignified care to women and newborns; (ii) facilitate physiological processes during labour and delivery to ensure a clean and positive childbirth experience; and (iii) identify and manage or refer women and/or newborns with complications.

Recommendations: Intrapartum care for a positive childbirth experience

This up-to-date, comprehensive and consolidated guideline on essential intrapartum care brings together new and existing WHO recommendations that, when delivered as a package, will ensure good-quality and evidence-based care irrespective of the setting or level of health care. The recommendations presented in this guideline are neither country nor region specific and acknowledge the variations that exist globally as to the level of available health services within and between countries. The guideline highlights the importance of woman-centred care to optimize the experience of labor and childbirth for women and their babies through a holistic, human rights-based approach.

Nursing Now

Nursing Now is a three-year global campaign run in collaboration with the International Council of Nurses and the World Health Organization. Nursing Now aims to improve health globally by raising the profile and status of nurses worldwide – influencing policymakers and supporting nurses themselves to lead, learn, and build a global movement.

International Confederation of Midwives (ICM)

As the global representative body for midwives, the International Confederation of Midwives (ICM) supports the capacity building of midwives and health systems around sexual, reproductive, maternal and newborn health (SRMNH) to ensure that all women have access to competent and professional midwives who are appropriately educated, skilled, regulated and supported to provide quality midwifery care across all settings.