17 April 2018, Cairo – On 19 May 2018, a Special Session of the Regional Committee for the Eastern Mediterranean will be held in Geneva, Switzerland, for the sole purpose of nominating a new Regional Director for the Eastern Mediterranean. Eight candidates have been proposed by Member States and information on each candidate is available on the...

March 2018 – This year, the theme of World Health Day is ‘Universal health coverage: everyone, everywhere’ under the slogan ‘Health for All’. Access to universal health coverage can prevent people from being pushed into poverty because they are forced to pay for the costs of their health care. Without universal coverage, the lives and welfare of...

23 March 2018, Cairo, Egypt – The World Health Organization (WHO) has deployed mobile medical clinics and critical health supplies to areas hosting newly displaced people from the northern Syrian district of Afrin, while supporting partners struggling to maintain health services in Afrin city and surrounding areas. An estimated 167 000 people...

6 March 2018 – This year, International Women’s Day, celebrated every year on 8 March, comes at a time when many countries in the Eastern Mediterranean Region are severely affected by humanitarian and emergency situations, with adverse implications for the prevalence and consequences of various forms of gender-based violence, including domestic...

27 February 2018 – As part of efforts to improve global health, the World Health Organization (WHO) and International Council of Nurses are supporting the Nursing Now campaign – a 3-year global health initiative of the Burdett Trust for Nursing that will be launched in February 2018. The campaign, which continues until the end of 2020, aims to raise...

8 February, 2018, Gaza Strip – Gaza’s health sector was on the verge of collapse due to dwindling fuel supplies until the United Arab Emirates stepped in this week with a US$2 million grant to sustain hospital backup generators for critical health services. The donation will provide enough fuel to keep facilities running for several months.  “The...

Credit: World Cancer Day Campaign Material by Union for International Cancer Control 4 February 2018, Cairo – The world celebrates World Cancer Day on 4 February each year. This year’s theme “‘We can. I can” is a continuation of a 3-year campaign that explores, highlights and provides guidance on how everyone – together or individually – can help reduce...

BANGKOK / 29 January 2018 – The World Health Organization’s first release of surveillance data on antibiotic resistance reveals high levels of resistance to a number of serious bacterial infections in both high- and low-income countries. WHO’s new Global Antimicrobial Surveillance System (known as GLASS) reveals widespread occurrence of...

Cairo, 25 January 2018 - As a result of collaborative work between the World Health Organization (WHO) and several academic institutions, an important tool has been developed to streamline use of qualitative research evidence in public health decision-making. A series of academic papers published in the Implementation Science journal this week...

13 December 2017, Cairo ‒ At least 3.5 billion people, or half of the world’s population, cannot obtain essential health services and each year, larger numbers of households are being pushed into poverty because they have to pay for health care out of their own pockets a new report from the World Health Organization and World Bank has revealed....