Today, Wednesday, health ministers from across the Middle East and North Africa convened in Cairo for the seventy-second session of the World Health Organisation’s Regional Committee for the Eastern Mediterranean (RC72). The annual gathering opens under the shadow of overlapping emergencies, conflict, economic distress, climate shocks, and dwindling aid, which are testing the limits of already-strained health systems.

This year’s agenda is crowded with pressing issues. Delegates are expected to endorse new commitments to halve the number of “zero-dose” children, those who have never received a single vaccine, by the end of the decade, and to accelerate efforts to eliminate rubella. Another initiative calls for palliative care to be woven into national health plans; today, only a small fraction of patients in need, from cancer sufferers to refugees with chronic illnesses, have access to such support.

A separate resolution targets health-system recovery in countries shattered by war, among them Yemen, Sudan, Afghanistan, and the occupied Palestinian territory. The plan seeks to pair emergency aid with early investment in hospitals, clinics, and disease surveillance, so that humanitarian relief can evolve into sustainable reform.

Delegates will also address the neglected but vital issue of laboratory safety, proposing stronger oversight and protection for health workers. Alongside these debates runs a regional consultation on how to make health systems more resilient to climate change, an urgent matter as rising temperatures, dust storms, and water shortages reshape public-health risks.

The scale of the challenge is daunting. With 16 simultaneous emergencies and more than 115 million people in need of care, the Eastern Mediterranean bears nearly a third of the world’s humanitarian burden.

The hope is that, before the meeting closes on October 17th, those virtues will be channelled into a coherent strategy to rebuild health, and confidence, in a region too long defined by crisis.