CAIRO, July 1, 2005 (IslamOnline.net) – The World Health Organization (WHO) gave credit to the Health & Science Section of IslamOnline.net for its landmark efforts to raise the health awareness in the Middle East.

In a celebration held this week, the IOL Health & Science Section received the WHO appreciation certificate for its "inalienable contributions in raising the health awareness in the Middle East", and the world organization considered IOL network as a partner in promoting health issues.

IOL Health & Science staff were also honored for their efforts in disseminating health knowledge to all peoples in the region.

On Tuesday, June 28, and attended by WHO director-general, Lee Young-Wook, and WHO Middle East regional director, Hussein Al-Jazaari, a celebration entitled "Partners for Health", was held to honor IOL Health & Science staff.

Over the past year, Health & Science Section has been joining hands with the WHO in undertaking many landmark scientific and health activities.

Leading among these activities was an e-campaign to raise the awareness on blood donation. The campaign was launched in June 2004 to mark the occasion of the World Blood Donor Day.

The IOL Health & Science Section has also prepared special pages to mark the occasions of "Quitting Smoking Day" and "World AIDS Day" as well as covering conferences organized by the WHO to raise health awareness.

The celebration was attended by flurry of African health ministers, senior health officials, super stars, media persons and public figures.

During the occasion, “Health Shields” and appreciation certificates were granted to the institutions playing roles in raising health awareness in the region.

A short film on activities championed by the WHO and its partners was broadcast during the celebrations.

IslamOnline.net is now considered the most powerful Islamic media tool worldwide, seeking to serve the interests of Muslims globally.

Media experts say the network is the most important pool of communications among Muslims and non-Muslims in more than 200 countries around the world with two languages, Arabic and English.

In just four years (2000-2003), IslamOnline.net has published around 306,691 materials, of which 233,223 published in Arabic and 73,486 in English.

According to the world's leading search engine Alexa, IslamOnline.net ranks first among all Islamic Web sites.

By the end of December, 2004, IslamOnline.net topped all religious and spiritual Web sites worldwide. It also came third among news and entertainment Web sites after Aljazeera.net and Google search engine.