Presenting his annual report for 2021, Dr Ahmed Al-Mandhari, WHO Regional Director for the Eastern Mediterranean, underlined how the COVID-19 pandemic has continued to exact a heavy toll, with a total of 28 million cases confirmed and more than 348 000 deaths reported across the Region by October 2022, amid widespread disruption to health services, economies and communities.

Dr Al-Mandhari also drew attention to how the midterm review of the regional vision Health for All by All “brought the WHO workforce, Member States, partners and external experts together to provide a rigorous assessment of progress towards our four regional strategic priorities – expanding universal health coverage, addressing health emergencies, promoting healthier populations and making transformative changes in WHO ¬– and towards the health-related Sustainable Development Goals.”

During the first regular session, participants elected Dr Mai Al-Kaila, Minister of Health of Palestine, as chair. Iraq’s Minister of Health Dr Hani Mousa Bader, and Lebanon’s Minister of Health Dr Firas Abiad, were elected as vice-chairs.

The session on the technical paper “Building resilient health systems to advance UHC and promote health security in the Eastern Mediterranean Region” began by addressing the challenges posed to health systems by COVID-19, noting the 23 global reviews to date that have identified gaps in health system capacity, mainly in fragile, conflicted-affected and vulnerable settings.