Early 2012, the WHO Regional Office for the Eastern Mediterranean (EMR) worked with Member States to reach consensus on the key health challenges that would be the focus of joint work over the course of the next five years. Five strategic priorities were identified and were subsequently endorsed by the World Health Organization (WHO) Regional Committee for the Eastern Mediterranean, which is th...

This paper provides standardized estimates of labor productivity in arable farming in selected regions of the early Ottoman Empire, including Jerusalem and neighboring districts in eastern Mediterranean; Bursa and Malatya in Anatolia; and Thessaly, Herzegovina, and Budapest in eastern Europe. I use data from the tax registers of the Ottoman Empire to estimate grain output per worker, standardiz...

Although the global prevalence of both the overweight and obese is on the rise, there are variations among regions or countries, and sexes. Approximately half or more than half of the population are overweight/obese defined as body mass index ≥25 kg/m(2)in the Americas (61.1%), Europe (54.8%), and Eastern Mediterranean (46.0%) according to the World Health Organization, while a much lower preva...

The Atlantic bluefin tuna fishery, one of the most prized and lucrative, is increasingly threatened with collapse, according to scientists, after the regulatory body established to maintain the fishery has again recommended a quota for the eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean population at a level that many scientists and conservationists believe is unsustainable. The International Commission for...

Introduction Familial Mediterranean fever (FMF) is an autosomalrecessive disorder characterized by recurrent attacks of fever and serositis common in eastern Mediterranean population. Over 160 mutations have been identified in MEFV gene responsible for FMF. The most common mutations in MEFV gene are E148Q, M694I, M694V, V726A and M680I. The distribution pattern of MEFV mutation along the Medite...

From the first reported case of Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) on December 30, 2019 in Wuhan, China, the number of confirmed cases of the disease has been increased continuously and exponentially up to now. The event has emerged as a clear threat to global health such that the World Health Organization (WHO) officially declared the outbreak of the disease a pandemic on March 11, 2020. The ...

INTRODUCTION Waterpipe tobacco smoking is harmful to health however its prevalence estimates remain uncertain. We aimed to systematically review the medical literature on waterpipe tobacco prevalence and trends. METHODS We searched Medline, Embase and ISI Web of Science for 'waterpipe' and its synonyms, without using language or date restrictions. We included any measure of waterpipe tobacco ...

Two sea turtle species nest in the Mediterranean, the green turtle and the loggerhead turtle. Leatherbacks are widely distributed in the Mediterranean, although they do not have any permanent nesting area. Two other species, the hawksbill and the Kemp’s ridley turtle only occur occasionally. Available information on sea turtle populations in the Mediterranean Sea, including distribution, popula...

Recently, European Union (EU)/European Economic Area (EEA) countries have witnessed an unprecedented volume of migration, with 1,046,599 migrants arriving in Europe in 2015 [1]. Of these migrants, most have Syrian, Afghan or Iraqi nationality, and they mainly arrived via the eastern Mediterranean route. Before the increase in migration in 2015, the EU/EEA area was already an attractive destinat...