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8th UN Global Road Safety Week: #MakeWalkingSafe #MakeCyclingSafe
12 May 2025, Cairo, Egypt – The eighth UN Global Road Safety Week begins on 12 May. This year, the international campaign, requested by the United Nations General Assembly, focuses on walking and cycling. The campaign provides an opportunity to advocate for national and local action to make walking and cycling safer through evidence-based...
EMHJ special issue on the public health implications of the war in Gaza
7 May 2025, Cairo, Egypt – In February and April 2025, the Eastern Mediterranean Health Journal (EMHJ) published 2 special issues on the medical risks and public health implications of the war in Gaza. The issues (Volume 31 Number 2 and Volume 31 Number 4) feature 38 papers on different aspects of public health. Of the 38 papers, 11 focus on...
World Hand Hygiene Day 2025: ‘It might be gloves. It's always hand hygiene’
6 May 2025, Cairo, Egypt – "It might be gloves. It's always hand hygiene", the theme of this year’s World Hand Hygiene Day (WHHD), emphasizing the critical role of hand hygiene as a simple yet powerful and cost-saving infection prevention and control (IPC) intervention, alongside the importance of appropriate glove use and the need to be aware of...
Closing remarks by Dr Hanan Balkhy, WHO Regional Director for the Eastern Mediterranean at the symposium on ensuring access to assistive technology and rehabilitation services in humanitarian crises
29 April 2025 Excellencies, Mr. Bilal Ahmad, Permanent Representative of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, Mr. Xu Chen, Permanent Representative of the People’s Republic of China, Esteemed representatives of the Permanent Missions to the UN, Colleagues from UN agencies and civil society organizations, This has been a fascinating discussion―and one that is...
Message from Dr Hanan Balkhy Regional Director WHO Eastern Mediterranean Region for World Malaria Day
25 April 2025 On this World Malaria Day, we are reminded of the devastating impact malaria continues to have on the world’s most vulnerable people. In 2023 alone, over 600,000 lives were lost to this preventable and treatable disease. In the WHO Eastern Mediterranean Region, more than 375 million people remain at risk—most of them in six...
Opening remarks by Dr Hanan Balkhy, WHO Regional Director for the Eastern Mediterranean at the workshop with the WHO Collaborating Centres in Saudi Arabia
23 April 2025 Your Excellency Dr Fahad Abdulrahman al-Jalajel, Minister of Health, Saudi Arabia, Distinguished colleagues, Ladies and Gentlemen, Thank you for joining us today at this important gathering of WHO Collaborating Centres in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the WHO Secretariat. I would like to begin by expressing my sincere appreciation...
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...
