Background: To assess readiness to achieve the WHO Global Strategy targets for HPV vaccination and cervical screening and to guide capacity building, the current status of these services in 18 Eastern European and Central Asian countries, territories and entities (CTEs) was evaluated. Methods: In order to assess the current status of HPV vaccination and cervical cancer screening in these 18 CTEs, a 30 question survey tool was developed, covering: national policies, strategies and plans for cervical cancer prevention; status of cancer registration; status of HPV vaccination; and current practices for cervical cancer screening and treatment of precancerous lesions. As cervical cancer prevention comes within the mandate of the United Nations Fund for Population Development (UNFPA), the UNFPA offices in the 18 CTEs have regular contact with national experts who are directly involved in cervical cancer prevention actions and are well placed to provide the data required for this survey. Working through the UNFPA offices, the questionnaires were sent to these national experts in April 2021, with data collected from April to July 2021. All CTEs returned completed questionnaires. Results: Only Armenia, Georgia, Moldova, North Macedonia, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan have implemented national HPV vaccination programmes, with only the last 2 of these reaching the WHO target of 90% of girls fully vaccinated by age 15, while rates in the other 4 range from 8%-40%. Cervical screening is available in all CTEs but only Belarus and Turkmenistan have reached the WHO target of 70% of women screened once by age 35 and again by age 45, while rates elsewhere range from 2%-66%. Only Albania and Turkey follow the WHO recommendation to use a high-performance screening test, while the majority use cervical cytology as the main screening test and Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan use visual inspection. No CTEs currently operate systems to coordinate, monitor and quality assure (QA) the entire cervical screening process. Conclusions: Cervical cancer prevention services in this region are very limited. Achieving the WHO Global Strategy targets by 2030 will require substantial investments in capacity building by international development organisations.

From 1985 to 2016, the prevalence of underweight decreased, and that of obesity and severe obesity increased, in most regions, with significant variation in the magnitude of these changes across regions. We investigated how much change in mean body mass index (BMI) explains changes in the prevalence of underweight, obesity, and severe obesity in different regions using data from 2896 population-based studies with 187 million participants. Changes in the prevalence of underweight and total obesity, and to a lesser extent severe obesity, are largely driven by shifts in the distribution of BMI, with smaller contributions from changes in the shape of the distribution. In East and Southeast Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, the underweight tail of the BMI distribution was left behind as the distribution shifted. There is a need for policies that address all forms of malnutrition by making healthy foods accessible and affordable, while restricting unhealthy foods through fiscal and regulatory restrictions.

Background: The organization of health care system on Cantonal level with the coordination from Federal level represents a real situation with the possibility of decentralization of health care system according to the experiences of developed countries. Objective. To make an overview of the situation at the primary and hospital health care level with the aim of assessing the existing human resources and capacity of health care institutions in FB&H, with which we entered in COVID-19 pandemic. Methods. This retrospective study presents the efficiency of health care in FB&H measured by number of medical doctors, and other medical staff during the time period of five years. Data of the Institute for Public Health FB&H were used. The Institute for Public Health FB&H is authorised by the law to conduct and implement statistical research in the field of health care in line with relevant laws and by-laws. The Institute is obliged to report on organisational structure, human resources and medical equipment. Results. Presented data include the number of health care employees in medical institutions in FB&H in the period 2015-2019 per 100,000 inhabitants and their numbers in primary health care, family medicine, secondary and tertiary level of health care in 2019. The study also presents the number of doctors of medicine, specialists and medical residents in FB&H, the number of nurses of all profiles and levels of education as well as medical staff and other employees in the public health care system in FB&H in 2019. Conclusions. The COVID-19 pandemic in FB&H has confirmed the fact that human resources in health care are insufficient, especially in the field of public health and epidemiology. The availability of these health facilities and human resource is not uniform throughout the FB&H, which may affect the capacity of the health system in some parts of the FB&H to meet the needs of providing services during COVID-19 pandemic.

Seila CiloviC-lagarija1, NiNo HaSaNiCa2,3, MilaN radojiCiC4, elMa SokiC-BegoviC5 , Maida MuliC6, BiljaNa MijoviC7 , aida Pilav8, doriS BardeHle9, SaNjiN MuSa1 1Institute for Public Health of FB&H, Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina 2Institute for Health and Food Safety Zenica, Institute for Public Health, Bosnia and Herzegovina 3Department of Healthcare, Faculty of Medicine, University of Zenica, Bosnia and Herzegovina 4Institute for Public Health of Herzegovina-Neretva Canton, Bosnia and Herzegovina 5Ministry of Health of Federation of Bosnia and Hercegovina 6Faculty of Medicine, University of Tuzla, Tuzla, Bosnia and Herzegovina 7Faculty of Medicine, University of East Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina 8Institute for Public Health of Sarajevo Canton, Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina 9Foundation of Men ́s Health Berlin; Germany

Despite many efforts to diagnose and treat preventable cardiovascular diseases (CVD), more specifically to detect known risk factors, these diseases continue to be the leading cause of morbidity and mortality. Bosnia and Herzegovina belongs among the high-risk countries with standardized death rate (SDR) of 385 per 100 000 inhabitants in 2018. Two leading causes of death are acute myocardial infraction, with rate around 90 deaths per 100 000 inhabitants and stroke with the rate around 80 deaths per 100 000 inhabitants in one year. Both incidents are preventable. Digital interventions are necessary for strengthening of the healthcare system. Benefits of eHealth could be seen in transmission of customized health information for different audiences: transmission of health-event alerts to a specified population group; transmission of health information based on health status or demographics; alerts and reminders to clients; transmission of diagnostic results (or of the availability of results) or even notifications and reminders for appointments, medication adherence, or follow-up services. Successful implementation of digital health requires multidisciplinary approaches, from mass dissemination of recommendations through public health education programs directly in the field, to clinical treatments for patients. All this requires the involvement of numerous actors, from the strategic to the operational level of management within the healthcare system in the country.