WHO, GLIDE Partner to Accelerate Disease Elimination Across Eastern Mediterranean
The World Health Organization (WHO) Regional Office for the Eastern Mediterranean and the Global Institute for Disease Elimination (GLIDE) have entered into a strategic partnership aimed at accelerating the elimination of preventable infectious diseases, using artificial intelligence, stronger disease surveillance and coordinated country-led interventions to improve public health across the region.
The agreement brings together WHO’s regional leadership with GLIDE’s technical expertise, research capability and catalytic financing to help countries tackle communicable diseases through more integrated and sustainable health systems.
Health officials say the collaboration will support national efforts to strengthen disease surveillance, improve diagnostic capacity and deploy emerging technologies that enable earlier detection and faster response to infectious disease outbreaks.
Chief Executive Officer of GLIDE, Dr. Farida Al Hosani, said the partnership combines innovation with implementation to help countries build more resilient health systems.
“By combining our research-driven approach, innovation and implementation expertise with WHO’s regional leadership, we are focusing on integrated surveillance and the use of artificial intelligence to strengthen health system resilience and support long-term disease elimination,” she said.
According to her, the initiative reflects a shared commitment to achieving a healthier future for countries in the Eastern Mediterranean while contributing to broader global efforts to eliminate preventable infectious diseases.
WHO Regional Director for the Eastern Mediterranean, Dr. Hanan Balkhy, said the partnership comes at a time when countries across the region face increasingly complex public health challenges that require coordinated cross-border responses.
“The challenges we face in the Eastern Mediterranean Region require innovative, cross-border solutions and robust institutional partnerships,” she said.
She noted that the collaboration would help accelerate implementation of WHO’s multi-disease elimination framework by expanding the use of advanced diagnostics and digital technologies to strengthen national disease control programmes.
A key element of the initiative is WHO’s new multi-disease elimination programme, which initially targets 14 high-burden communicable diseases considered suitable for integrated interventions. Rather than addressing diseases in isolation, the framework seeks to strengthen shared health system functions, harmonise monitoring systems and improve service delivery while maintaining disease-specific targets and validation processes.
The partnership also places renewed emphasis on strengthening poliovirus surveillance to help countries maintain the technical capacity needed to prevent new outbreaks and sustain polio-free status where elimination has already been achieved.
Beyond disease control, the collaboration reflects a growing recognition that stronger public health systems are closely linked to economic resilience. Infectious disease outbreaks can disrupt labour markets, reduce productivity, strain healthcare budgets and slow economic activity, making investments in surveillance and prevention increasingly important components of long-term development planning.
The two organisations said they will continue exploring additional areas of cooperation as the partnership evolves, with the broader objective of strengthening health security across the Eastern Mediterranean and supporting global efforts to eliminate preventable infectious diseases.
