Statement by Dr Adham Ismail, officer in charge WHO Eastern Mediterranean: RC73 Press Conference

22 September 2026

Good morning, and thank you for joining us.

It is a great pleasure to engage with media from across our Region and beyond on the health issues that matter to us all.

Journalists are essential partners in informing the public, raising awareness and strengthening accountability on health.

In three weeks, ministers of health and senior delegations from across the Eastern Mediterranean Region will gather in Cairo for the seventy-third session of the WHO Regional Committee.

This is the Region's main health decision-making forum. And this year, we meet in especially challenging circumstances.

Our Region is home to just 9% of the world's population, yet almost half of all people globally who need humanitarian assistance live here.

It also bears some of the world's largest displacement crises.

Health systems are being stretched by conflict, economic pressure and repeated emergencies.

Between July 2025 and June 2026, WHO verified 632 attacks on health care across the Region, causing more than 1,530 deaths.

At the same time, WHO itself is working through the sharpest funding contraction in its history.

So RC73 is not taking place in normal conditions, which makes the results in this year's annual report all the more significant.

Despite immense pressure, countries continued to deliver.

Three countries were validated by WHO for eliminating trachoma as a public health problem.

Sudan increased third-dose pentavalent vaccination coverage from 38% to 71% in a single year, meaning many more children were fully protected against five potentially deadly diseases - in the middle of a war.

Somalia reduced cholera deaths by 93% and re-established a national medicines regulatory authority after more than three decades.

And the regional maternal mortality ratio fell from 191 to 160 deaths per 100 000 live births between 2020 and 2025.

These were no small gains. They meant more children protected from disease, fewer lives lost to outbreaks, safer pregnancy and childbirth, and stronger health systems.

And they were achieved with fewer resources.

The Region's base programme budget fell by 14%, from US$ 618.4 million to US$ 533.7 million.

Two hundred and seventy WHO posts were abolished.

In 2025, WHO's emergency appeals across the Region were only 55% funded.

Our response has been to protect emergency operations and frontline technical support, push more resources towards countries, and make difficult choices about what can be sustained.

More than 70% of base-programme resources are now directed to country offices, and WHO mobilized US$ 1.6 billion for the Region during 2024-2025 - one of the highest levels among WHO regions.

So RC73 is not just about looking back. It is about what countries do next.

Two major resolutions will be put before Member States.

The first is about protecting people from the financial consequences of seeking care.

Today, 28% of people in this Region face financial hardship because of what they pay directly for health care.

And the trend is going the wrong way.

Between 2015 and 2022, the proportion of people pushed into poverty, or further into poverty, because of health spending rose from 22.2% to 22.7% in this Region.

The proposed resolution asks countries to strengthen public financing, improve financial protection, get better value from available resources and strengthen governance.

It does not impose one model on 22 very different health systems.

It asks every country to identify where people are being failed financially - and take the next practical step.

The second resolution tackles the fragmentation of our response to communicable diseases.

HIV, hepatitis, malaria, tuberculosis and other disease programmes depend on the same laboratories, surveillance systems, supply chains, health workers, primary health care and community networks.

Yet too often, those systems are planned and financed separately.

An estimated 610,000 people were living with HIV in this Region in 2024 - around twice the number in 2015 - and only 28% were receiving treatment.

Nearly 28 million people live with chronic hepatitis B or C.

Malaria incidence has more than doubled since 2015.

The aim is not to merge disease programmes or dilute specialist expertise.

It is to make better use of the systems they share, reduce duplication and accelerate progress towards elimination.

There is also a change in how the Regional Committee itself works.

Following reforms introduced last year, the formal session is now concentrated into three days, with more of the technical preparation done earlier with Member States.

That means less time spent negotiating wording in the room, and more time spent making decisions.

Other technical discussions will continue during a virtual week from 28 September to 1 October, covering medicines and vaccines, digital health, health information systems, recovery and rehabilitation in Gaza, mental health and psychosocial support in emergencies, and Iraq's polio transition.

Before I close, let me address the leadership transition at the Regional Office.

This is our first press briefing since Dr Balkhy took a leave of absence as Regional Director to stand for election as WHO Director-General.

I am serving as Officer-in-Charge during that period.

My job is straightforward: keep the work moving, keep the Regional Office delivering for countries, and steer RC73 through this period of transition.

The WHO Secretariat is neutral in the election of the Director-General.

This Regional Office will not be used as a campaign platform, and no WHO resource, channel or event is available to any candidacy.

That standard applies equally to every candidate.

And, crucially, the work continues without interruption.

As this year's annual report shows - and I encourage you to read it - countries across the Region have continued vaccinating children, controlling outbreaks, rebuilding institutions and strengthening health systems in circumstances that would have brought many systems to a standstill.

RC73 is where we take stock of what has been achieved, face the gaps honestly, and decide how to move this Region forward.

I am happy to take your questions.