Pandemic and epidemic diseases: 2018 in retrospect

In 2018, WHO's Regional Office for the Eastern Mediterranean continued to support its Member States in containing outbreaks and building country capacities in prevention and surveillance of, preparedness for, and response to health threats posed by emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases.

The Infectious Hazard Management programme of the Department of Health Emergencies in the Eastern Mediterranean Region worked closely with Member States to:

respond to and contain a number of outbreaks of high-threat pathogens, including MERS in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, cholera in Yemen and Somalia, Crimean-Congo haemorrhagic fever in Afghanistan and Iraq, extensive drug resistant typhoid fever in Pakistan, chikungunya and Acute Watery Diarrhoea in Sudan, dengue fever in Oman, West Nile fever in Tunisia and many more;

expand the Emerging and Dangerous Pathogen Laboratory Network (EDPLN);

Strengthen surveillance systems for detection of high-threat pathogens in Djibouti, Libya, occupied Palestinian territory, , Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen.

The following photo essay covers some of the major public health activities undertaken this year in support of Ministries of Health, in coordination with regional and global health partners.

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Pandemic and epidemic diseases: 2018 in retrospect

A 6-year-old girl in Hudaydah shows her oral cholera vaccination card (Photo: WHO/Sadeq Al-Wesabi).