71st session of the WHO Regional Committee for the Eastern Mediterranean

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71st session of the WHO Regional Committee for the Eastern Mediterranean

11 October 2024, Doha, Qatar ‒ The Seventy-first session of the WHO Regional Committee for the Eastern Mediterranean will be held in Doha, Qatar from 14 to 17 October 2024 under the theme health beyond borders: action, access, equity.

Ministers of health and high-level representatives of the 22 Member States and territories of WHO's Eastern Mediterranean Region, and representatives of partner organizations and civil society, will meet to discuss priority public health issues.

WHO Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Regional Director for the Eastern Mediterranean Dr Hanan Balkhy and chair of the 70th session of the Regional Committee and Minister of Health and Human Services of Somalia H.E. Dr Ali Haji Adam Abubakar will address the opening session. It will also be attended by Qatar's Minister of Public Health H.E. Dr Hanan Al-Kuwari.

During the session, Dr Balkhy will present her regional vision for the endorsement of Member States. The vision, which aims to secure the best attainable level of health for everyone in the region, includes 3 flagship initiatives: on expanding timely and equitable access to life-saving medicines and vaccines; building a more resilient health workforce, and reducing the morbidity, mortality and social costs associated with substance use disorders.

"The starting point to achieve our goals is to focus on the 3 flagship initiatives that will serve as accelerators for the regional vision and its strategic operational plan, which in turn is based on the WHO's Fourteenth General Programme of Work (GPW14)," said Dr Balkhy.

The Regional Strategic Operational Plan describes what WHO aims to achieve in the coming 4 years in response to country priorities, and how it will do it. Like the GPW14, it has a strong accountability framework.

The Regional Committee will also include discussions of priority public health issues, technical papers, updates and a wide range of panel discussions and side events.

The technical papers that will be presented cover topics from antimicrobial resistance (AMR) and health information systems (HISs) to addressing the burden of trauma in humanitarian settings and scaling up mental health and psychosocial support in emergencies.

AMR is a major global health problem. The Eastern Mediterranean Region has the highest - and fastest growing - rate of antibiotic use of any WHO region. Antimicrobial mis- and overuse fuels the development and spread of drug-resistant infections and is a major threat to human and animal health.

The Eastern Mediterranean is also facing an increased trauma burden, a result of multiple crises besetting the Region. The effective management of trauma requires a functioning trauma care pathway embedded within a comprehensive system of emergency, critical and operative care services, yet in many humanitarian settings already-fragile health systems have been severely weakened and damaged, restricting the capacity of health workers to provide essential health services.

The technical paper on HISs sets out a new regional strategy to enhance and digitalize national information systems. It aims to ensure that countries generate high-quality, timely, relevant, disaggregated and reliable data to inform policies and programmes and to monitor progress towards the health-related Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The Regional Committee will be invited to endorse the proposed strategy.

Mental health accounts for 5.1% of the global burden of disease and 5.4% of the disease burden in the Region. A technical paper presenting a regional action plan for mental health and psychosocial support in emergencies, covering the period 2024-2030, will be reviewed during the Regional Committee before the plan is presented to members for endorsement.

Among the many panel discussions, panelists will address ways to nurture the opportunities and mitigate the risks of using artificial intelligence to help build universal health coverage and health security across the Region.

WHO's Eastern Mediterranean Region is home to almost 700 million people. It comprises some of the world's highest income countries alongside fragile, conflict-affected states. RC71 is convening in very challenging circumstances, with new fronts of conflict opening.

Participants will receive an update on the health and humanitarian situation in the occupied Palestinian territory. In the Gaza Strip, an entire population has been cut off from sustained aid, and polio has resurfaced after 25 years, paralyzing an unvaccinated 10-month-old boy. In September, Ministry of Health with WHO and partners was able to vaccinate around 560 000 children under ten years during the first round of a vaccination campaign to stop the polio outbreak and prevent its international spread, that was made possible by adherence to humanitarian pauses by all parties and an enthusiastic response from families in Gaza. There have been an estimated 40 600 deaths so far, most of them women and children, and the toll is rising all the time. Civilian spaces and health care have come under sustained attack and the threat of disease outbreaks grows daily.

In the words of Dr Balkhy: "Ongoing emergencies have left over 100 million people in need of humanitarian assistance, including for health. Only a durable ceasefire will give families in the Gaza Strip the chance to heal and rebuild their lives."

Ministers of Health and other participants will also receive updates on the work of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Body (INB), polio eradication in the Eastern Mediterranean Region, progress on the strategic framework for blood safety and availability 2016-2025, the regional strategy to improve access to medicines and vaccines in the Eastern Mediterranean Region 2020-2030, building resilient health systems to advance universal health coverage in the Eastern Mediterranean Region, moving from theory to action to achieve the health-related Sustainable Development Goals.

Note to editors

The work of WHO at the regional level is governed by regional committees. The Regional Committee for the Eastern Mediterranean convenes every year in October and is attended by all countries of the Region. It formulates policies, provides oversight for regional programmes, revises and endorses new initiatives and adopts resolutions that guide the work of the Regional Office and country offices for the next year.

For more information, please contact:

Mona Yassin
Communications Officer
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Mobile: +201006019284

RC71 web site: https://www.emro.who.int/about-who/rc71/index.html