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World Elder Abuse Awareness Day 2024: ensuring older people’s safety in emergencies
15 June 2024, Cairo, Egypt – On World Elder Abuse Awareness Day 2024, the spotlight is on older people in emergencies. Older people often face mobility issues, chronic health conditions or social isolation –some of the factors that can hinder their ability to access aid, evacuate safely or receive timely medical care and support services. The chaos...
Address by Dr Hanan Balkhy Regional Director WHO Eastern Mediterranean Region the joint FAO/WHO event to mark World Food Safety Day 2024
10 June 2024 Colleagues, Ladies and Gentlemen, I am pleased to join you all today to mark the World Food Safety Day. Food safety is vital for health and a critical part of the public health and climate change agenda. In the WHO Eastern Mediterranean Region, an estimated 100 million people suffer from foodborne diseases annually, and 32 million of...
Unsafe food makes 100 million people ill each year in the Region
6 June 2024, Cairo, Egypt – “Prepare for the unexpected” is the theme of the sixth World Food Safety Day, marked today by the United Nations. Food businesses, governments and consumers can all help prevent food contamination and foodborne illnesses. Food must be protected at every stage from production to consumption. WHO and the Food and...
Message from Dr Hanan Balkhy Regional Director WHO Eastern Mediterranean Region to the WHO pathways to leadership for health transformation graduation ceremony
6 June 2024 My dear friends and partners, Dr Moeti and Dr Kluge, Colleagues, I am delighted to join you today to celebrate our colleagues’ achievement in completing the Pathways to Health Leadership for Transformation programme. In doing so, we are also celebrating another example of successful collaboration among our three regions. As I think...
Better antimicrobial use data to accelerate action on antimicrobial resistance
3 June 2024 – Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is a growing public health threat in the Eastern Mediterranean Region and globally. The Global Research on Antimicrobial Resistance (GRAM) project estimates that 123 834 deaths in the Region in 2019 were directly due to sepsis caused by resistant bacteria, while a further 341 097 deaths were associated...
Awards for outstanding contributions to public health to be presented at Seventy-seventh World Health Assembly
30 May 2024, Geneva, Switzerland/Cairo, Egypt – Eight awards are to be presented at the Seventy-seventh World Health Assembly to people and institutions from around the world for their outstanding contributions to public health in their countries and globally. Four of the awardees are from the Eastern Mediterranean Region. A special awards...
Message from Dr Hanan Balkhy WHO Regional Director for the Eastern Mediterranean on the occasion of World No Tobacco Day
31 May 2024 Young people are at risk. They are being targeted by the tobacco industry to take up traditional and new tobacco products. The industry is desperate to attract the younger generation. It is using different promotional activities, different products and even false health claims to achieve this purpose. The most recent data from the...
Engaging journalists on promoting IPC and hand hygiene to save lives
29 May 2024 – World Hand Hygiene Day (WHHD) has been marked for 16 years to advocate for hand hygiene as an evidence-based, practical approach to infection prevention and control (IPC) in health care settings. This helps limit the risk of epidemics and pandemics and control the spread of antimicrobial resistance (AMR). Countries the world over,...
High-level panel discussion on health in Eastern Mediterranean Region explores ways to move from crisis to opportunity
28 May 2024, Geneva, Switzerland – A partnership event to highlight health challenges and opportunities and the WHO journey in the Eastern Mediterranean Region was held in Geneva on 25 May, ahead of the Seventy-seventh World Health Assembly. Hosted by the WHO Regional Director for the Eastern Mediterranean Dr Hanan Balkhy and fellow senior...
WHO welcomes funding support from KSrelief for critical health response operations in Sudan, Syria, and Yemen
25 May 2024 – The World Health Organization (WHO) today signed funding agreements with the King Salman Humanitarian Aid and Relief Centre (KSrelief) valued at USD 19.4 million to jointly address global health challenges including in emergency responses. The support will reinforce WHO operations and programmes in three countries namely Sudan, Syria,...
