Sultan Qaboos University Hospital hosted a health education open day on 23 April 2014 to celebrate World Health Day 2014 under the global theme “Vector-borne diseases”. WHO participated in the event, exhibiting publications available from the WHO Information Centre.
World Health Day is held on 7 April each year and highlights an important theme. During 2014, WHO is highlighting the serious and increasing threat of vector-borne diseases, with the slogan “Small bite, big threat”.
More than half the world’s population is at risk from diseases such as malaria, dengue, leishmaniasis, Lyme disease, schistosomiasis and yellow fever, carried by mosquitoes, flies, ticks, water snails and other vectors. Every year, more than 1 billion people are infected and more than 1 million die from vector-borne diseases.