The Eastern Mediterranean Region enters 2026 carrying the heaviest humanitarian burden in the world, with an estimated 115 million people in need of assistance, World Health Organization (WHO) Regional Director for the Eastern Mediterranean Dr Hanan Balkhy said on 27 January.
Speaking at a WHO Health Emergencies press briefing, Balkhy said nearly half of global humanitarian needs are concentrated in the region, while funding continues to decline. In 2025, WHO emergency health appeals in the region were only 55 percent funded, widening the gap between needs and available resources and costing lives.
Conflict, mass displacement, disease outbreaks, climate shocks, and fragile health systems are interacting across the region, deepening vulnerability and pushing already overstretched health services beyond their limits, she said.
WHO is currently responding to 15 graded health emergencies in the Eastern Mediterranean, accounting for around one third of all graded emergencies worldwide. These include acute crises in Sudan and Gaza, alongside protracted and chronically underfunded emergencies in Yemen, Somalia, and Afghanistan.
Preventable diseases continue to claim lives at scale. In 2025, WHO responded to 62 disease outbreaks across 19 of the region’s 22 countries and territories, including cholera, dengue, measles, mpox, and circulating vaccine-derived poliovirus. Balkhy said WHO supported early detection, rapid response teams, strengthened surveillance and laboratory capacity, and coordination with national authorities and partners.
Health care itself remains under attack. In 2025, the Eastern Mediterranean accounted for 41 percent of all attacks on health care reported globally and more than 90 percent of deaths linked to these attacks, with Sudan emerging as the single largest contributor to fatalities among health workers and patients, she said.
Displacement has reached unprecedented levels, with the region hosting three of the world’s largest crises in Sudan, Syria, and Afghanistan. Sudan represents the largest forced displacement crisis globally. Overall, the Eastern Mediterranean hosts nearly half of the world’s internally displaced people and more than a third of the global refugee population, placing immense pressure on health systems.
Despite severe constraints, WHO continues to deliver wherever possible. In Sudan, after more than 1,000 days of conflict and amid ongoing outbreaks of cholera, dengue, and malaria, WHO-supported interventions have enabled treatment for 3.3 million patients, care for more than 112,000 severely malnourished children with medical complications, mass vaccinations, and the delivery of 3,378 tonnes of medical supplies and medicines.
In Gaza, the ceasefire has allowed WHO and partners to scale up operations, restore supply pipelines, and rehabilitate a shelled WHO warehouse. However, Balkhy warned that supplies entering Gaza remain far below needs, with the Ministry of Health reporting zero stock of half of all essential medicines and shortages of 65 percent of medical disposables in mid-January.
The emergency in Yemen continues to receive far less attention despite its urgency, she said, noting that only 66 percent of children are fully immunized and that a variant poliovirus outbreak has paralysed more than 450 children since 2021.
Balkhy stressed the need for coordinated inter-agency action as the WHO finalizes its 2026 Emergency Health Appeal and prepares for the 158th session of the WHO Executive Board in Geneva in February.
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