In June 2015 the Healthcare Infection Society held a two-day Middle East Infection Prevention Summit with the aim of uniting colleagues across the globe in driving down infection rates and improving infection prevention and control practice. In many ways the Middle East is a microcosm for the challenges in infection prevention and control across the world. The economies range from underdeveloped countries such as Egypt, with a low per-capita gross domestic product, to the wealthy hydrocarbon-exporting, and increasingly diversified, economies of the Gulf Cooperation Council countries; of course these vast economic differences impact on the resources available for healthcare. Moreover, there are large ex-patriot populations in many Middle Eastern countries and international travel to and from the Middle East is frequent, meaning that infections emerging there can quickly have a global impact.Two of the themes of the conference that have particular international relevance are the huge challenges presented by multidrug-resistant Gram-negative bacteria in Middle Eastern hospitals, and local experience with Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV). Coverage of the latter was particularly opportune, given the outbreak of MERS-CoV in South Korea in May 2015 originating from a traveller returning from visiting several Middle Eastern countries.This special section of the journal includes three papers relating to the Summit. Drs Omrani and Shalhoub present a review of MERS-CoV, and Dr Jon Otter and Professor Nesrene Omar describe their British and Egyptian perspectives of the Summit.1, 2, 3