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Speech by Dr Hanan Balkhy, WHO Regional Director for the Eastern Mediterranean, at the Strategic Partnership Event hosted by the King Khaled Foundation in Riyadh
22 April 2025 Your Highness Princess Nouf bint Muhammad bin Abdullah, Excellencies, Distinguished guests, It gives me great pleasure to join you here to today to discuss the strategic partnership between the World Health Organization and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. I am grateful to our gracious host, the King Khalid Foundation, for bringing us...
Speech by Dr Hanan Balkhy, WHO Regional Director Tackling the region’s #1 killer: WHO’s fight against heart disease TCT Plus Middle East 2025 in Riyadh
17 April 2025 Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen, It is my pleasure to join you here today at the TCT Plus Middle East inaugural international conference on cardiovascular care. We come from a Region of broken hearts. It is enough to turn on the news to have your heart broken a million times each day. But the deeper heartbreak is lived by...
WHO Regional Director concludes a successful visit to Tunisia
WHO Regional Director for the Eastern Mediterranean Dr Hanan Balkhy has concluded a successful 3-day visit to Tunisia between 13–16 April 2025. Dr Balkhy met with H.E. Dr Mustafa Ferjani, Minister of Health, to discuss ways to address the social determinants of health, drug addiction, migration of the health workforce, medicine shortages and...
Dr Hanan Balkhy concludes a 1-day visit to Oman
9 April 2025 – The Sultanate of Oman welcomed World Health Organization (WHO) Regional Director for the Eastern Mediterranean Dr Hanan Balkhy for a 1-day visit, on Wednesday, 9 April 2025, to reinforce collaboration to advance Health for All in Oman and the Region. The highlight of the visit was the launch of Oman’s National Health Policy (NHP), an...
Statement by Dr Hanan Balkhy, WHO Regional Director for the Eastern Mediterranean to the launch of the Oman National Health Policy
08 April 2025 Excellencies, Sayyid Dr Sultan bin Yarub bin Qahtan Al-Busaidi, Advisor in the Private Office. Dr Hilal Bin Ali l-Sabti, Minister of Health Ladies and Gentlemen It gives me great pleasure to join you here today to launch the National Health Policy for the Sultanate of Oman 2025-2035. In pursuit of “health for all” and in line with the Oman...
Healthy Beginnings, Hopeful Futures – On World Health Day WHO calls for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza
Jerusalem, Cairo, Geneva, 7 April 2025 – On World Health Day, with the theme “Healthy beginnings, hopeful futures,” the Gaza Strip continues to be one of the most dangerous places to be a child and where pregnancy is clouded by fear due to ongoing violence, displacement and lack of medical access. Between 18 March and 4 April 2025, since the...
World Health Day 2025: ‘Healthy beginnings, hopeful futures’
On World Health Day, marked every year on 7 April, the World Health Organization (WHO) is calling for global action to ensure access to high-quality health care for women and babies. Though there has been progress in reducing maternal and newborn mortality, the Eastern Mediterranean Region continues to face significant challenges in ensuring the...
Strengthening health collaboration with Qatar
March 2025, Doha, Qatar – WHO Regional Director for the Eastern Mediterranean Dr Hanan Balkhy concluded a successful official visit to Qatar aimed at strengthening collaboration on key health priorities, including health emergencies, climate change, humanitarian response, health workforce development and substance use. The visit marked a...
Message from Dr Hanan Balkhy Regional Director WHO Eastern Mediterranean Region on the occasion of the World Tuberculosis Day
24 March 2025 Tuberculosis remains a major public health challenge in the Eastern Mediterranean region, particularly in low- and middle-income countries. In 2023 alone, the region recorded 936,000 new TB cases and nearly 86,000 deaths. Every 34 seconds, someone falls ill with tuberculosis, and every six minutes, another life is lost. These deaths are...
Statement by Dr Hanan Balkhy, WHO Regional Director for the Eastern Mediterranean, at the Health emergencies press briefing
18 March 2025 Colleagues, members of the press, Good afternoon. Thank you for joining us today. Before I begin my briefing, I would like to mention that the Eastern Mediterranean Health Journal recently launched a two-part series focused on Gaza. The first issue explores the war’s impacts on health, offering scientific evidence, practical...
