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Improving the Response of Health Systems to Female Genital Schistosomiasis in Endemic Countries through a Gender-Sensitive Human Rights-Based Framework

The right to health was enshrined in the constitution of the World Health Organization in 1946 and in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948, which also guaranteed women’s fundamental freedoms and dignity. The Declaration of Human Rights was signed by almost every country in the world. No...

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Autores principales: Vlassoff, Carol, Arogundade, Kazeem, Patel, Kruti, Jacobson, Julie, Gyapong, Margaret, Krentel, Alison
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9777435/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36547211
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/diseases10040125
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author Vlassoff, Carol
Arogundade, Kazeem
Patel, Kruti
Jacobson, Julie
Gyapong, Margaret
Krentel, Alison
author_facet Vlassoff, Carol
Arogundade, Kazeem
Patel, Kruti
Jacobson, Julie
Gyapong, Margaret
Krentel, Alison
author_sort Vlassoff, Carol
collection PubMed
description The right to health was enshrined in the constitution of the World Health Organization in 1946 and in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948, which also guaranteed women’s fundamental freedoms and dignity. The Declaration of Human Rights was signed by almost every country in the world. Nonetheless, gender inequalities in health and health systems continue to persist, especially in lower and middle income countries that are disproportionately affected by a litany of neglected diseases. In this paper, we focus on one of the most neglected human rights, development, and reproductive health issues globally, female genital schistosomiasis (FGS), which imposes enormous unacknowledged suffering on an estimated 56 million women and girls in Sub-Saharan Africa. Despite increasing calls for attention to FGS, no country has fully incorporated it into its health system. An appropriate response will require a comprehensive approach, guided by human rights mandates and the redress of FGS-related gender inequalities. In this paper, we propose the application of existing human rights and its clients, women, and girls affected by FGS as rights holders. Within the different components or building blocks of the health system, we propose elements of an appropriate health system response using the four components identified within the FGS Accelerated Scale Together (FAST) Package—awareness raising, prevention of infection, training of health personnel, and diagnosis and treatment. The framework is aspirational, its recommended elements and actions are not exhaustive, and countries will need to adapt it to their own situations and resource availability. However, it can be a useful guide to help health systems define how to begin to incorporate FGS into their programming in a way that responds to their human rights obligations in a gender- and culturally sensitive manner.
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spelling pubmed-97774352022-12-23 Improving the Response of Health Systems to Female Genital Schistosomiasis in Endemic Countries through a Gender-Sensitive Human Rights-Based Framework Vlassoff, Carol Arogundade, Kazeem Patel, Kruti Jacobson, Julie Gyapong, Margaret Krentel, Alison Diseases Article The right to health was enshrined in the constitution of the World Health Organization in 1946 and in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948, which also guaranteed women’s fundamental freedoms and dignity. The Declaration of Human Rights was signed by almost every country in the world. Nonetheless, gender inequalities in health and health systems continue to persist, especially in lower and middle income countries that are disproportionately affected by a litany of neglected diseases. In this paper, we focus on one of the most neglected human rights, development, and reproductive health issues globally, female genital schistosomiasis (FGS), which imposes enormous unacknowledged suffering on an estimated 56 million women and girls in Sub-Saharan Africa. Despite increasing calls for attention to FGS, no country has fully incorporated it into its health system. An appropriate response will require a comprehensive approach, guided by human rights mandates and the redress of FGS-related gender inequalities. In this paper, we propose the application of existing human rights and its clients, women, and girls affected by FGS as rights holders. Within the different components or building blocks of the health system, we propose elements of an appropriate health system response using the four components identified within the FGS Accelerated Scale Together (FAST) Package—awareness raising, prevention of infection, training of health personnel, and diagnosis and treatment. The framework is aspirational, its recommended elements and actions are not exhaustive, and countries will need to adapt it to their own situations and resource availability. However, it can be a useful guide to help health systems define how to begin to incorporate FGS into their programming in a way that responds to their human rights obligations in a gender- and culturally sensitive manner. MDPI 2022-12-14 /pmc/articles/PMC9777435/ /pubmed/36547211 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/diseases10040125 Text en © 2022 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Vlassoff, Carol
Arogundade, Kazeem
Patel, Kruti
Jacobson, Julie
Gyapong, Margaret
Krentel, Alison
Improving the Response of Health Systems to Female Genital Schistosomiasis in Endemic Countries through a Gender-Sensitive Human Rights-Based Framework
title Improving the Response of Health Systems to Female Genital Schistosomiasis in Endemic Countries through a Gender-Sensitive Human Rights-Based Framework
title_full Improving the Response of Health Systems to Female Genital Schistosomiasis in Endemic Countries through a Gender-Sensitive Human Rights-Based Framework
title_fullStr Improving the Response of Health Systems to Female Genital Schistosomiasis in Endemic Countries through a Gender-Sensitive Human Rights-Based Framework
title_full_unstemmed Improving the Response of Health Systems to Female Genital Schistosomiasis in Endemic Countries through a Gender-Sensitive Human Rights-Based Framework
title_short Improving the Response of Health Systems to Female Genital Schistosomiasis in Endemic Countries through a Gender-Sensitive Human Rights-Based Framework
title_sort improving the response of health systems to female genital schistosomiasis in endemic countries through a gender-sensitive human rights-based framework
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9777435/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36547211
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/diseases10040125
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