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Preparing for the next big one: protecting health in earthquakes

Statement by WHO Regional Director for Europe, Dr Hans Heni P. KlugeIstanbul, 2 July 2026  Thank you, Minister Memişoğlu, for hosting us, and for the leadership Türkiye has shown. Before I begin, our thoughts are with the people of Venezuela. Just days ago, two powerful earthquakes there took many lives and damaged the health facilities that families depended on. It is a painful reminder of why we are gathered here today. Earthquakes come without warning. And too often, it’s not the earthquake that takes lives, but the buildings that fall in its wake. I was here in the days after

Preparing for the next big one

Health ministers gather in Istanbul where scientists predict a major earthquake in the coming decadesISTANBUL, 1 July 2026 High-level participants will agree to protect health systems before the next major quake three years after the devastating 2023 Türkiye–Syria earthquakes Earthquakes are the deadliest of all natural hazards, causing more than half of all deaths from natural-hazard disasters worldwide between 2000 and 2023. Across the WHO European Region, millions of people live in homes and are treated in health facilities that would not survive a major earthquake. That’s why

MEDIA ADVISORY

Protecting health in earthquakesGovernment of Türkiye and WHO Regional Office for Europe joint press conference (hybrid) WHEN: Thursday, 2 July 2026, 1015–1045 TRT / 0915-0945 CEST / 0815-0845 BST WHERE: Hilton Istanbul Bomonti Hotel & Conference Center, Merkez, Silahşör Cd. No:42, 34381 Şişli, İstanbul, Türkiye WHY: Earthquakes are the deadliest natural hazard on Earth, and the WHO European Region spans two of the world's major earthquake belts. As health ministers and senior officials from across the Region and beyond conclude a two-day conference in Istanbul, WHO/Europe and the

Get prepared: current Europe heatwaves are a dress rehearsal

Statement by WHO Regional Director for Europe, Dr Hans Henri P. Kluge Copenhagen, 30 June 2026 Across Europe right now, people are struggling to sleep. Emergency rooms are filling up. Ambulance services are breaking records. In France, emergency medical calls have risen by up to 50% in some cities. In London, last week saw the highest number of life-threatening emergency calls the ambulance service has ever recorded in a single day. Spain's mortality monitoring system has already estimated more than 300 heat-associated excess deaths in just a few days. Italy reported five

Get prepared: current Europe heatwaves are a dress rehearsal

Copenhagen, 30 June 2026 Across Europe right now, people are struggling to sleep. Emergency rooms are filling up. Ambulance services are breaking records. In France, emergency medical calls have risen by up to 50% in some cities. In London, last week saw the highest number of life-threatening emergency calls the ambulance service has ever recorded in a single day. Spain's mortality monitoring system has already estimated more than 300 heat-associated excess deaths in just a few days. Italy reported five deaths in 24 hours. Europe is warming at more than twice the global average.

Sweden and WHO launch new long-term initiative to transform Ukraine’s health system

Copenhagen & Stockholm, 26 June 2026WHO and the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida) launch a new multi-year cooperation project to support the long-term recovery and transformation of Ukraine’s health system. The new project, “Ukraine’s Health System Transformation Initiative: Strengthening Health Governance, Health Financing and Service Delivery for Long-Term Recovery”, launch at the Ukraine Recovery Conference 2026 in Gdansk, Poland and will run from June 2026 to 2029. Sweden will contribute approximately US$ 26 million (SEK 240 million) to support this project.

No country should have to build its digital health future alone – now none of them will

WHO/Europe and Healthcare Denmark sign agreement to advance digital health, data and AI in the WHO European Region WHO/Europe Regional Director Dr Hans Henri P. Kluge (left) and Chair of Healthcare Denmark, Mr Lars Fruergaard Jørgensen Copenhagen, 15 June 2026 WHO/Europe and Healthcare Denmark have signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to accelerate cooperation on digital health, health data, artificial intelligence (AI) and health system innovation in the 53 countries of the WHO European Region. A partnership built on shared priorities Under the agreement, WHO/

Europe lost 200,000 people to heat in 4 years yet nearly all of them were preventable

Statement by Dr Hans Henri P. Kluge, WHO Regional Director for Europe, at the launch of WHO's new guidance to protect lives from extreme heatBerlin, 11 June 2026  The impacts of climate change are a clear and present danger, and its most immediate and lethal manifestation is extreme heat. Heatwaves are no longer freak weather anomalies. They are now a recurring crisis inflicting suffering, claiming lives and fracturing our health systems and infrastructure. Over just the past 4 years, heat has claimed more than 200 000 lives across the EU and its associated countries. The tragedy is 2-

Ebola risk remains low ahead of the Football World Cup

Statement by Dr Hans Henri P. Kluge, WHO Regional Director for EuropeCopenhagen, 11 June 2026 As the Football World Cup kicks off across Canada, Mexico and the United States, many fans from Europe will be travelling to attend. Let me reassure you: none of the host countries, nor the European Region, currently has Ebola cases. There is no reason to change your plans. Travel as normal, stay informed and enjoy the tournament. Large events bring people together, and staying prepared helps keep everyone safe. Be aware of Ebola symptoms such as fever, aches and vomiting. If you’ve recently

Media advisory

REMINDER: Launch of new WHO guidance on heat–health action plans to protect our communities and save lives from extreme heathttps://www.who.int/europe/news-room/events/item/2026/06/11/default-calendar/launch-of-new-who-heat-health-action-plans-guidance  · What: Hybrid press conference launch of the new WHO Heat–Health Action Plans Guidance · When: Thursday, 11 June 2026, 08:00–09:00 CEST (Berlin time) · Where: German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Climate Action, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety (BMUKN), Stresemannstraße 128-130, 10117 Berlin, and online. ·

Media advisory

Launch of new WHO guidance on heat–health action plans to protect our communities and save lives from extreme heathttps://www.who.int/europe/news-room/events/item/2026/06/11/default-calendar/launch-of-new-who-heat-health-action-plans-guidance  · What: Hybrid press conference launch of the new WHO Heat–Health Action Plans Guidance · When: Thursday, 11 June 2026, 08:00–09:00 CEST (Berlin time) · Where: German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Climate Action, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety (BMUKN), Stresemannstraße 128-130, 10117 Berlin, and online. · Registration:

EU and WHO scale up action to respond to the Ebola outbreak in DRC and Uganda

The European Union (EU) and the World Health Organization (WHO) reinforce their cooperation to support national authorities in responding to the ongoing Ebola outbreaks in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Uganda. The aim is to rapidly contain transmission, protect communities and strengthen preparedness in the region, ultimately to save lives. PHOTO: EU Commissioner Lahbib and the WHO Regional Directors of Africa and Europe, Dr Janabi and Dr Kluge, December 2025 Brazzaville, Brussels & Copenhagen, 29 May 2026 Through the European Union’s support, WHO is scaling up

MEDIA TOOLKIT

World No Tobacco Day (WNTD) 2026Ahead of WNTD 2026 on the 31st of May, WHO/Europe is pleased to share a new media toolkit for this year’s campaign theme — “Unmasking the appeal: countering nicotine and tobacco addiction”  It focuses on how the industry tries to reboot the market of addiction attracting children and adolescents with novel products and highlights the urgent need for stronger policy action across the WHO European Region. FACT: The WHO European Region is the global leader in tobacco use · 40% of all female smokers in the world live in the WHO European Region; · 4

Belgian expertise at the heart of a global wake-up call on climate and health

Three Belgians helped shape a landmark report calling on WHO and governments to treat climate change as the health emergency it already isBrussels, 21 May 2026 When the Pan-European Commission on Climate and Health  launched its Call to Action at the World Health Assembly in Geneva this week, three Belgians were at the centre of it. Dr Hans Kluge, WHO Regional Director for Europe, convened the independent Commission. Professors Hans Bruyninckx and Sandrine Dixson-Declève sat among its 13 Commissioners,

Climate change is a health crisis – and fixing it is a health opportunity

Independent Commission of former heads of government, international bodies, ministers and civil society leaders delivers 17 recommendations for what WHO and countries should do next FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASEGeneva, Switzerland, 17 May 2026 Energy prices are volatile, supply chains are under strain, and the geopolitical shocks of recent years have exposed how fragile fossil fuel dependency makes societies; economically, politically and in terms of health. In the last decade the global temperature increase has accelerated significantly, and the pan-European region is the fastest-heating

How a little-known virus on a cruise ship put the world's health security framework to the test

Copenhagen, 15 May 2026HI-RES PHOTOS FROM TENERIFE AVAILABLE (links at the end) Photo credit: WHO/Hedinn Halldorsson When the United Kingdom notified WHO on 2 May 2026 of a cluster of severe respiratory illness aboard a Dutch-flagged cruise ship in the Atlantic Ocean, passengers from 23 countries were on board. Within days, cases of hantavirus (Andes strain) had been confirmed in South Africa, Switzerland and the Netherlands. The ship was still at sea. What followed was one of the most complex multi-country outbreak responses in recent years - and a direct test of the

VIDEO RELEASE

Hantavirus MV Hondius, hantavirus outbreak, arrives in Tenerife 10 MAY 2026WHO-BROLL  PLEASE CREDIT: WHO Canto Link:  https://who.canto.global/b/JHBBM Duration:03:17 Shows: (Check against delivery) Puerto de Granadilla, Tenerife, Canary Islands 10MAY2026 (NATS) · MED of cruise ship anchored in the harbour · WIDE of cruise ship anchored in the harbour, with WHO in the foreground · WIDE of a small boat travelling across the screen · WIDE of a small boat moving across the water with the cruise ship in the background · WIDE of a Civil Guard boat with the cruise

Message by the WHO Director-General to the people of Tenerife regarding the hantavirus response

9 May 2026To the people of Tenerife, My name is Tedros, and I serve as the Director-General of the World Health Organization, the United Nations agency responsible for global public health. It is not common for me to write directly to the people of a single community, but today I feel it is not only appropriate, it is necessary. I want to speak to you directly, not through press releases or technical briefings, but as one human being to another, because you deserve that. I know you are worried. I know that when you hear the word “outbreak” and watch a ship sail toward your shores,

3,000 attacks on healthcare in Ukraine verified by WHO since full-scale invasion

Kyiv & Copenhagen, 8 May 2026 During 1,534 days of war, Ukraine’s health-care system has experienced repeated attacks. WHO has verified more than 3,000 attacks on health care over this period through its Surveillance System for Attacks on Health Care (SSA), applying global verification standards and systematically monitoring, verifying and reporting incidents. The scale and frequency of these incidents place patients and health workers at constant risk and undermine the delivery of life-saving services. Under international humanitarian law (IHL), the wounded and sick, medical

Hantavirus: risk to public remains low

Statement by WHO Regional Director for Europe, Dr Hans Henri P. KlugeCopenhagen, 4 May 2026 We are acting with urgency to support the response to the hantavirus event on board a cruise vessel in the Atlantic, following the tragic loss of life. WHO/Europe is working with the countries involved to support medical care, evacuation, investigations and public health risk assessment. I am in close contact with our teams to ensure a coordinated, science-based response. I thank the South African authorities for their rapid support, including care for a UK patient. Hantavirus infections

A global flu vaccination target has existed for two decades – yet only four countries in the European Region are hitting it

Fifteen-year analysis by WHO/Europe finds high-income countries distribute ten times more doses per person than their lower-income neighbours COPENHAGEN, 24 April 2026 The WHO European Region has made real progress on influenza vaccination over the past 15 years. Since 2008/09, the number of doses distributed across the Region has doubled, and by 2021/22 every Member State had established a national flu vaccination programme – making it the first of WHO’s six global regions to achieve this. Yet a new study 

WHO/Europe Special Advisor on antimicrobial resistance (AMR) announced

Lyon, 7 April 2026 Dr Malin Grape from Sweden is to be appointed Special Advisor on antimicrobial resistance (AMR) to the WHO European Region. Her role will include advocating for AMR control across the Region, engaging partners, contributing to strategic discussions at regional and global levels, and chairing the Independent Expert Group for the AMR Accountability Index in 2026. This work is a critical part of WHO/Europe’s efforts to strengthen health security.  "A world that loses antibiotics is a world without modern medicine. Surgery, cancer treatment, organ transplants -

Denmark becomes first country in the European Union to eliminate mother-to-child transmission of HIV and syphilis

Geneva, Copenhagen, 27 FebruaryThe World Health Organization (WHO) has certified Denmark for the elimination of mother-to-child transmission (EMTCT) of HIV and syphilis, recognizing the country's sustained commitment to ensuring every child is born free of these infections. “The elimination of mother-to-child transmission of HIV and syphilis marks a major public health achievement for Denmark,” said Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General. “This milestone demonstrates that with strong political commitment and consistent investment in primary care and integrated maternal and

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