Ministry of Health
Turkish Red Crescent
AFAD

Dr. Basar Cander President of EPAT
Dr. Behect Al, Treasurer of EPAT
Dr. Lisa Moreno, President of AAEM
Dr. Paul Wax, Executive Director of ACMT
Dr. Charles McKay, Immediate Past President of ACMT
Dr. Ashish Bhalla, President of APAMT
Dr. Amin Kazzi, President of MAEM
Dr. Kai Kehe, representative of Dr. Thierman President of EAPCCT

Guests, delegates and participants from Turkey and beyond

Good Morning and Merhaba

On behalf of MENATOX, I would like to welcome you to beautiful Istanbul for MENATOX 2020.
MENATOX is a non-profit organization whose mission is to advance the care of poisoned patients and prevent poisonings through education, clinical care, research, and public health strategies and actions. Our vision is that every person in the MENA region will be able to receive care from a qualified clinical toxicologist is his or her own city or country. This is our 10-year anniversary and we have come a long way since 2010. That said, we have an exciting journey ahead that includes various important initiatives:
•    Fellowship training in our region and the formation of an Arab Board of Medical Toxicology
•    Chemical exposure surveillance and data sharing
•    Snake envenomation registry
•    Technical consultation to our region Ministries of Health and other entities in clinical toxicology and related public 

      health and injury prevention strategies 
•    Medical student and resident outreach activities
•    Expansion of publications through the Mediterranean Journal of Emergency Medicine and Acute Care which is our     

     official journal
I would like to thank EPAT for the support and partnership in organizing this meeting and the company Literatur for providing the logistical support. 
I also wish to thank our delegations from Iraq and Yemen as well as our colleagues in Yemen who were unable to join us due to logistical problems. We hope to meet with them soon in health and peace.
This meeting would not have been possible without the generous and constant support for our sponsors: Toxinz, Response System International, Randox, Integral Global Consulting and the Turkish Red Crescent. I invite you to visit them in the exhibit hall to learn more about them.
Finally, I would like to that members of the organizing and research committees and express my deepest gratitude to Dr. Aynur Sahin who is our scientific meeting co-chair. She has done a huge amount of work and we thank for that!