Opening remarks by Dr Ahmed Al-Mandhari, Regional Director for the Eastern Mediterranean, for the World Immunization Week press briefing
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27 April 2021 – Thank you for joining us today for this special press briefing to mark World Immunization Week.
This year, the development and roll-out of COVID-19 vaccines sheds a new light on World Immunization Week. It shows us all in real time just how critical immunization is to control deadly diseases and save lives.
Before we talk more about immunization in our Region, I would like to update you on the COVID-19 situation in the Eastern Mediterranean Region. Both globally and regionally, there has been a substantial increase of cases over the past weeks.
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Aerial view of Alexandria, ca. 1929. Photo: Walter Mittelholzer. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
Itâs my first Palm Sunday in Rome. The year is 1966. I am fifteen, and my parents, my brother and I, and my aunt have decided to visit the Spanish Steps. On that day the Steps are filled with people but also with so many flowerpots that one has to squeeze through the crowd of tourists and of Romans carrying palm fronds. I have pictures of that day. I know I am happy, partly because my father is staying with us on a short visit from Paris and we seem to be a family again, and partly because the weather is absolutely stunning. I am wearing a blue wool blazer, a leather tie, a long-sleeved white polo shirt, and gray flannel trousers. I am boiling on this first day of spring and dying to take off my clothes and jump into the Roman fountainâthe Barcacciaâat the bottom of the Steps. This should have been a beach day, and perhaps this is why the day resonates with me so muc