Unlike their Western counterparts, some of the Eastern/Southern Mediterranean countries lack centralized coordinated blood transfusion services leading to an unequal blood safety level. This was recently highlighted by a recent World Health Organization (WHO) regional committee report in which WHO urges these countries to establish and implement a national blood system with well-coordinated blo...

BACKGROUND Kaposi's sarcoma (KS) in HIV negative patients is rare and has to be distinguished from AIDS associated KS. Two groups are at risk to develop non-AIDS related KS: elderly men mainly of Mediterranean origin and persons with iatrogenic immunosuppression. PATIENTS AND METHODS In order to define risk-groups and major clinical features we retrospectively evaluated clinical data of all p...

Too many mothers in the world are dying or suffering from the effects of ill-health, poor nutrition and inadequate health care. Each year more than half a million mothers die in childbirth and around 4 million babies do not survive past the first 4 weeks of life [1]. A significant proportion of these deaths take place in the Eastern Mediterranean Region (EMR) of the World Health Organization. I...

Information is presented on the frequency of the Msp I (-) allele in the third intron of the bovine growth hormone gene in a large number of cattle breeds. Consideration of the breed frequencies in relation to their geographic origin shows a low frequency for breeds originating in Northern Europe, moderate frequencies for breeds originating in Eastern Europe or the countries surrounding the Med...

CONTEXT The world health organization (WHO) recommends that all blood donations should be screened for evidence of infections, such as hepatitis B. The present study aimed to determine the prevalence of hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) in blood donors at the eastern Mediterranean region office (EMRO) of the WHO and middle eastern countries. EVIDENCE ACQUISITION A meta-analysis was carried ...

OBJECTIVE Using nationally representative data, this study examined the prevalence of very frequent physical fighting (≥12 times per year) among youth in 27 countries and cities. Frequent physical fighting has rarely been reported in the previous literature despite the implications for research and practice. METHODS Analyses were based on the Global School-based Student Health Survey (2003-20...

For the past few decades, the Eastern Mediterranean Region has been one area of the world profoundly shaped by war and political instability. On-going conflict and destruction have left the region struggling with innumerable health concerns that have claimed the lives of many. Wars, and the chaos they leave behind, often provide the optimal conditions for the growth and re-emergence of communic...

BACKGROUND The Mediterranean region is particularly vulnerable to the effect of summer temperature.Within the CIRCE project this time-series study aims to quantify for the first time the effect of summer temperature in Eastern-Southern Mediterranean cities and compared it with European cities around the Mediterranean basin, evaluating city characteristics that explain between-city heterogeneity...

BACKGROUND The global burden of conduct disorder is a major public health concern. Although there are different reports on the prevalence of conduct disorder in different Middle Eastern countries, to date, no research has reviewed them. Therefore, we aimed to conduct a systematic review and meta-analysis on the literature and present the prevalence of conduct disorder among children and adolesc...

Genetic diversity of durum wheat landraces is a powerful tool for the introgression of new alleles of commercial interest in breeding programs. In a previous study, our team structured a collection of 172 durum wheat landraces from 21 Mediterranean countries in four genetic populations related to their geographical origin: east Mediterranean (17), east Balkan and Turkey (23), west Balkan and Eg...