Abu Sary is pictured with WHO staff in July 2024 during the 2nd round of the Big Catch-up vaccination activity in Al-Saan health center, Suqaylabiyah, Hama Governorate.27 August 2024, Damascus, Syria – On 28 May 2024, delegates of the Seventy-seventh World Health Assembly took part in a special high-level event to celebrate 50 years of immunization progress – honouring achievements, embracing innovation and envisioning the future. The event was to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Expanded Programme on Immunization (EPI).

As WHO marks this milestone, it is important to acknowledge the health worker heroes who have worked tirelessly to protect public health. One such hero is Abu Sary, from Salamiyah, Hama, Syria. His lifelong dedication to vaccinating the children of Bedouin tribes has significantly improved health in his community.

Born into a Bedouin family, Abu Sary has always understood the unique challenges of his people. After graduating in 1967, Abu Sary joined the health department in Salamiyah. His purpose was clear: to bring to the nomadic Bedouin families the essential health services they often missed out on.

From 1967 to 2004, Abu Sary worked with mobile vaccination teams. He educated Bedouin families about the importance of vaccination, facilitated their access to public services and earned their trust. This trust was crucial to his mission to ensure that children received the essential vaccinations they needed.

Abu Sary consistently went above and beyond his duties. Each week, he would travel with mobile vaccination teams to Bedouin areas on Saturdays, Sundays and Mondays, often staying overnight to ensure that all vaccines were administered. On Monday evenings, he returned to Salamiyah to refill his car with fuel and collect more vaccines, before continuing to visit different Bedouin areas until Thursday. His commitment to working away from home showed his deep dedication to the health of the Bedouin people, who trusted him as one of their own.

After retiring in 2004, Abu Sary remained an influential figure in vaccination promotion in Salamiyah and the surrounding deserts of Hama, Homs and Ar-Raqqa. For many years, he continued to know the vaccination status of every Bedouin child, and he would help mobilize community members for vaccination activities.

In 2024, Abu Sary supported the Big Catch-Up vaccination activities conducted in April and July, which reached and screened the vaccination status of more than 26 000 children aged under 5 years across Syria. His efforts directly helped to vaccinate more than 160 zero-dose children in the Salamiyah area, most of them living in remote and high-risk areas.

Today, Abu Sary’s daughter is pursuing a career in health care that involves administering vaccinations, inspired by her father’s commitment to the cause. His enduring influence ensures that his mission to protect public health continues.

Abu Sary’s efforts have saved numerous lives, and his story exemplifies how one individual can truly make a difference through commitment and service. Abu Sary is not only a health worker, but also an immunization hero.

Photo caption: Emad Shehab actively engaging with community members during a cholera awareness campaign in Al-Ashara, Deir-ez-Zor Governorate, Syria, 2023. Photo credit: @WHO

19 August 2024, Damascus, Syria – Emad Shehab, killed after a building collapsed following an airstrike in his hometown Deir-ez-Zor, was a public health emergency specialist and engineer whose expertise and dedication served as an inspiration to everyone who worked with him.

"Emad was a dedicated professional whose commitment greatly impacted our response in Syria. We deeply feel his loss, and his legacy continues to inspire our work. We are committed to carrying on the vital work he championed and honouring his memory,” said Dr Iman Shankiti, WHO Representative a.i in Syria.

Emad started working at WHO in 2022 as a water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) focal point in Deir-ez-Zor. His expertise led to critical improvements in WASH conditions at health facilities where he spearheaded vital water quality monitoring efforts and addressed significant public health hazards. Imad’s leadership in installing solid waste treatment units at Al Assad Hospital and Al-Hamidiya Health Centre was crucial in mitigating epidemic risks, making significant contributions to public health and environmental safety in challenging circumstances.

"Emad was a loving and caring husband and father of two children, Jad, 4, and Sham, 9. Even now Jad asks me 'when will Dad come back from his trip? I miss him so much,' and I don't know how to reply," says Imad's widow Om Jad.

"My daughter Sham had a special relationship with her father. She watched him prepare blueprints for projects and she started to draw sketches of his work. He always supported and guided her. Now that he has passed away, she wants to be like her dad when she grows up so he can be proud of her."

Emad earned a bachelor’s degree in architectural engineering from Aleppo University in 2004. Before joining WHO, he gained extensive experience in engineering and project management, working with FAO, WFP, UNICEF and several NGOs on the construction and rehabilitation of water stations and sanitation facilities.

Emad showed unwavering devotion to his work and his family. His exemplary approach to humanitarian work and human relationships left a lasting impact on everyone he encountered, whether acquaintances or strangers. As Imad’s dedication and compassion continue to inspire us, we will honour his memory by carrying forward the vital work he was so passionate about. His loss is deeply felt by all of us who were fortunate enough to know him.

Door-to-door distribution of permethrin cream in camps as part of the scabies response in north-west Syria. Photo credit: © Al-Sham Humanitarian Foundation 4 August 2024 – In north-west Syria, lack of sanitation services, compounded by limited water supply and overcrowding, creates the ideal conditions for infectious diseases to spread. Scabies is among the infections of concern in north-west Syria, especially in densely populated camps as it is transmitted person to person through close skin contact.

WHO collaborated with the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and Health and WASH (Water, Sanitation and Hygiene) Cluster partners to launch a permethrin-based mass drug administration on 16 July 2024. This large-scale response to scabies has been made possible thanks to financial support from European Union Humanitarian Aid.

Community health workers raise awareness among families living in camps on how to treat and prevent scabies. Photo credit: © Al-Sham Humanitarian Foundation The campaign will last for 21 days and target more than 180 000 people in 71 camps and 7 communities. Partners have also distributed UNICEF-procured hygiene kits and trained community workers and hygiene promoters in how to treat scabies and prevent its further spread.

“In north-west Syria, an estimated 2 million people are living in overcrowded camps with poor living conditions. This presents a huge risk for the spread of scabies. We are very grateful to the European Union for its support in helping to curb the spread of scabies through this mass drug distribution,” said Ms Rosa Crestani, Team Lead for the WHO Field Presence Office in Gaziantep, Türkiye.

UNICEF-procured hygiene kits are distributed as part of the scabies response in north-west Syria. Photo credit: © Al-Sham Humanitarian Foundation WHO carried out a comprehensive scabies community survey exercise in north-west Syria in December 2023. This revealed a high prevalence of scabies, surpassing the 10% community transmission threshold set by WHO, with higher rates reported in camps.

People living in camps were found to be 7 times more likely to contract scabies than people living in the wider community. Children and elderly people living in resource-poor areas and people with compromised immune systems are at higher risk of infection.

Widespread displacement in Syria continues to place girls and women at risk of violence and exploitation29 July 2024 – Syria’s 2023 earthquake put to the test the trainings on gender-based violence and mental health support that WHO has funded and organized in the country since 2018. The earthquake also prompted WHO to initiate its work on prevention and response to sexual misconduct (PRS). Under WHO’s definition, sexual misconduct includes sexual harassment, exploitation and abuse.

The 7.8-magnitude earthquake that struck Syria on 6 February 2023 brought death, destruction and displacement in its wake. Hundreds of thousands of people lost their homes and were forced to move to temporary shelters.

“When I arrived at the shelter where I was working, I was dismayed at the conditions people were facing. The shelter was overcrowded and had no separators. There was just one toilet for 1000 people,” recalls Dr Hala Zghaibeh, National Professional Officer and PRS focal point in the WHO Country Office in Syria. “These difficult conditions placed girls and women at risk of violence and exploitation.”

WHO Syria drew on its partnership with the Syrian Commission for Family Affairs and Population (SCFAP) to address the risk of sexual misconduct among people affected by the earthquake. WHO also initiated a new partnership to operationalize PRS activities following the disaster.

SCFAP is the only national government agency to handle social protection and it also runs the national victim and survivor support unit. Following the earthquake, SCFAP sent 150 frontline support workers – trained with funds from WHO – to places where there was a high risk of gender-based violence, to offer support and referral services to people in need.

Foundational work on prevention and response to sexual misconduct

In 2018, WHO launched trainings in Syria on tackling gender-based violence, first in Aleppo and later in 9 more governorates. Organized with the Ministry of Health, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and United Nations health sector partners, these trainings first had to overcome the obstacle of how to broach such a sensitive subject.

Dr Wail Ismail, Public Health Officer and PRS focal point in WHO Syria, reflects on this earlier initiative: “Gender-based violence and sexual misconduct were sensitive topics and continue to be so in many parts of the world. As a workaround in our trainings, we used language that was familiar to public health and reproductive health care providers, when supporting survivors of violence, and began by enhancing their psychosocial support skills.”

Syria has come a long way since then, navigating taboos and scepticism to reach a place where senior Ministry of Health officials now serve as focal points for PRS. In the 5 years since the initial trainings, WHO Syria has made steady progress in preventing sexual misconduct, as well as gender-based violence, by reshaping institutional responses to these issues.

The power of partnerships

At the Aleppo health centre, women and children learn about accessing support services for gender-based violencePartnerships have been instrumental in driving Syria’s progress in PRS. An example is WHO’s collaboration with the Institute of Human Resource Management (IHRM), an NGO that supports organizations to build capacity in developing policies against sexual misconduct. It also offers trainings on such policies and can help devise a related code of conduct, making workplaces safer spaces.

Through a WHO-financed project, IHRM delivered training-of-trainers sessions on PRS to 38 people from 6 Syrian governorates over 8 months in the period 2023–2024. The training has been cascaded to 565 people, chiefly from NGOs but also from the public and private sectors, helping to foster a culture of accountability and support within workplaces.

Ministry of Health adopts PRS actions

Yet another notable success has been the Syrian Ministry of Health’s uptake of PRS actions since 2023. More than 1700 public health personnel from across the country have been trained on the topic.

Dialogues and sessions with programme directors at the Ministry of Health have helped strengthen support for PRS work. The Ministry is gradually incorporating PRS as part of its strategic planning and priority setting, with ministerial focal points for PRS appointed at a high level, including the Deputy Minister for Health Affairs. A workshop held in May 2024, on development of policy and institutional capacity-building, was attended by 35 people, including the deputy ministers of health and justice.

Dr Razan Tarabishi, Director of Primary Health Care at the Ministry of Health, has been a steadfast champion of the adoption of PRS policies and actions within the Ministry. “WHO presented us with a significant opportunity to familiarize ourselves with PRS policies,” she explains. “We can now better understand the discussions on the topic at the World Health Assembly and are able to brief and support our Minister better. This is valuable knowledge for continued efforts in our country.”

Syria’s progress is reflected not only in the numbers of people trained and policies drafted in workplaces, but also in the palpable shift in attitudes. What was once taboo is now openly addressed, paving the way for survivors of sexual misconduct to seek support without fear or stigma. Through sustained advocacy and engagement, institutional barriers are coming down and PRS in Syria is now a shared responsibility.

What next?

WHO Syria will continue to strengthen its partnerships and engagement with the Ministry of Health and other government counterparts, in particular to develop stronger PRS policies and explore potential legal amendments.

WHO Syria is also working to deepen and scale up the capacities of NGOs and the public and private sectors in PRS and in strengthening assistance for survivors.