Proposed additional members of the Guideline Development Group for the update of the WHO consolidated guidelines for the Management of Common Childhood Illness, 2023

Guideline Development Group for Paediatric and Adolescent Diabetes Mellitus

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Background

Significant progress has been made in reducing child mortality over the last two decades. Despite this progress, approximately 5.9 million children and young adolescents still died in 2021[1]. Majority of these deaths are preventable and are distributed unevenly, majority occurring in Africa and East-Asia. The main causes of mortality and morbidity are largely due to problems in newborn period; while in the post-neonatal period the lead causes are infectious diseases such as lower respiratory infections, diarrhoeal diseases, malaria, and in older children and young adolescents, non-communicable diseases such as injuries are significant causes[2]. Interventions to address these are known and available and will prevent these deaths if they can be delivered at a high coverage level equitably and with high quality.

The WHO Department of Maternal, Newborn, Child and Adolescent Health and Aging (MCA) developed guidance for clinical management of childhood illnesses to support health care workers to deliver quality care at primary health care and first level referral hospitals: the integrated Management of Childhood Illness (IMCI) Chart Booklet and 2) WHO Pocket Book for Hospital Care for Children. These tools were last updated in 2013 and 2014, as derivatives of the Recommendations for management of common childhood conditions guideline which was released in 2012. Both the guideline and the derivatives mainly focused on the care for children under the age of 5 years. With the redesign of the child health programme in the context of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), WHO has embarked on, ensuring that there is a continuity of services and guidance for optimal childcare along their life course from infancy to adolescence.

The MCA department is now embarking on a process to update the background guideline which provides the recommendations that will guide the update of both tools. Recommendations in the new guideline will also where relevant, address the ages 5-9 years and 10-14 years, thereby extending the age scope of both derivative tools. The general scope will cover the clinical management of common childhood illnesses at primary care facilities and first referral hospitals. It will address the clinical assessment, investigation, diagnosis, treatment and supportive care for common emergency, acute and chronic conditions in children and young adolescents. It will cover prioritized communicable and non-communicable diseases and conditions that are major causes of mortality or morbidity in children and young adolescents up to 14 years of age particularly in low- and middle-income countries.

The guideline development process will be using a full WHO Guideline Review Committee (GRC) process[3] which include systematic reviews, the development of evidence to decision frameworks and the formulation of a guideline development group (GDG) of experts to review the evidence and make recommendations. The scope will include the management of asthma in children and young adolescents; acute bronchiolitis; common causes of fever (urinary tract infections, mastoiditis, acute otitis media, chronic otitis media); common noncommunicable diseases (anaemia; sickle cell disease; diabetes mellitus); and the provision of supportive care for the sick child, where delivery of oxygen therapy and the diagnosis and management of hypoglycemia will be reviewed. The WHO guideline steering group has developed a list of draft questions for systematic reviews which have been framed the population, intervention, control, outcome format for consideration by the GDG. The expectation is that the final forms of the research questions (including potential additional questions) will be finalized at the first guideline development group (GDG) meeting.

Role of the Guideline Development Group

The guideline development group is made of external experts in the subject area, their main role is the task of developing evidence-based recommendations for the guideline. Members of the GDG participate in the guideline development process and at meetings as individuals and not as representatives of the institutions or organizations with which they are affiliated. The GDG is also responsible for finalizing the scope of the key questions of the guideline. During the guideline development process, GDG members will be called upon to define the priority outcomes which will guide evidence retrievals and reviews, examine the evidence profiles of the quality of evidence, interpret the evidence, and formulate recommendations that will go into the guideline.

In 2022, a panel of experts with expertise covering a broad range of paediatric and adolescents clinical and public health areas were invited to serve as GDG members for the guideline, with the first GDG meeting holding in July 2022. Based on feedback from the GDG group, the MCA department is proposing to add additional members to the GDG with specific expertise in the epidemiology, research, and clinical management of diabetes mellitus in children and adolescents. The provisional list of the GDG members who are experts, front line providers and patient representatives are listed below:  

Relevant links

WHO recommendations on management of common childhood conditions, 2012 https://apps.who.int/iris/handle/10665/44774

Pocket book of hospital care for children: Second edition, Guidelines for the management of common childhood illnesses https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/978-92-4-154837-3

Integrated management of childhood illness - Chart booklet (march 2014) https://www.who.int/publications/m/item/integrated-management-of-childhood-illness---chart-booklet-(march-2014)

Redesigning child and adolescent health programmes Meeting Report 23-25 January 2019 https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/redesigning-child-and-adolescent-health-programmes

List and Biography of Proposed Guideline Development Group Members

1. Dr Bankah, Elizabeth
2. Dr Gonzalez, Manuel Vera
3. Ms Habib-Jawulaa, Sumayaat
4. Dr Omar, Anjumanara
5. Dr Piloya-Were, Thereza

GDG DM Biographies

Declarations of interests (DOIs)

WHO Secretariat has received and assessed all the DOIs submitted by the GDG members. In accordance with WHO's policy, all declared interests, even if they do not give rise to a conflict of interest that would warrant partial or total exclusion of the expert concerned, will be disclosed within the Guideline Development Group (GDG) at the beginning of the meeting so that other members are aware of them. Many of the GDG members have extensive research and governmental experience and expertise – and consulting with WHO – in the areas that are the subject of the guideline underdevelopment, which are considered relevant and important for the tasks faced by the GDG.

Process to provide comments on the proposed GDG members

Should you have any comments on the proposed GDG members, please send them to cartillierl@who.int