Union Middle East Region

Successful Middle East Region Conference held in Cairo

DSCN1088_web

The 27th Conference of The Union Middle East Region was held jointly with the Egyptian Society of Chest Diseases and Tuberculosis meeting in Cairo, Egypt on March 27-30 2012. More than 1,700 participants from the Middle East region and worldwide attended the event. Prof Dr Mohamed Awad Tag Eldin, who is both President of the Egyptian Society of Chest Diseases and Tuberculosis and Middle East Region Board Representative for The Union, opened the conference with Egypt’s Minister of the Higher Education Prof Dr Hussein Khaled and Dr Nils E Billo, Executive Director of the Union.

The Union Middle East Region to hold conference in Cairo

The 27^th Conference of The Union Middle East Region will be held in Cairo, Egypt on 27–30 March 2012. The event is being held in conjunction with The 53^rd meeting of Egyptian Society of Chest Diseases and Tuberculosis.

Topics to be addressed include tuberculosis, pollution and lung health, tobacco and health, bronchial asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) chest radiology, pneumonia as a serious respiratory tract infection and oxygen as a drug.

This combined meeting is the biggest event of the year for pulmonologists in Egypt and the Arab world. The goal is to update chest physicians about recent advances in the field. The guest faculties will include eminent international, Arab and Egyptian scientists.

The official language of the conference is English.

For information on registration and details about the program, click here:

http://egyptsct.org/conf/Welcome.html

This website offers news from The Union offices and members in this region. You will also find here contact information, upcoming events and links to the websites of Union member organisations.

Egypt raises tobacco tax to reduce consumption

The Egyptian government has been gradually increasing taxes on tobacco since 2010. Most recently, in July 2011, the Egyptian government raised the national tobacco tax on the retail price of all cigarette brands by an additional 10%.

This marked the second successive rise in taxation on cigarettes, following an earlier rise of 40% in July 2010, which also imposed a 100% rise on Shisha (water pipe) and smokeless tobacco products. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), tobacco taxation is one of the most effective ways to reduce tobacco consumption.