Sima Sharara, from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, USA, and Souha Kanj, from the American University of Beirut Medical Center, Lebanon, briefly describe the
devastating effects of the conflict on the Syrian
healthcare system and focus on the increasing number of cases of poliomyelitis, measles, and cutaneous leishmaniasis in the region, which they say is nothing short of a regional, and arguably
global, public health emergency.