2023: Year of Egypt's achievements in health sector
With only hours left for the year 2023 to conclude, Egypt considers 2023 a year of health achievements.
In the below lines, et highlights the remarkable achievements made by Egypt in the health sector:
- The first certificate in the world granted to Egypt for being free of Hepatitis C:
Since early 2000, Egypt has been strengthening its national programs in the areas of prevention and treatment, and the country established the National Committee for Hepatitis Control, an administrative structure responsible for supervising and directing the national response to hepatitis.
Starting in 2014, the President of Egypt launched a national campaign to eliminate hepatitis, which was strengthened again in 2018. The campaign provided tests to detect and treat the hepatitis C virus without financial compensation.
Egypt succeeded in moving from a country with one of the highest rates of hepatitis C infection in the world to a country with one of the lowest rates, by reducing the prevalence of hepatitis C from 10% to 0.38% in a period of just over a decade.
At the foot of the pyramid, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of the World Health Organization, handed President Sisi the golden certificate declaring Egypt free of Virus C, so that the pyramids would bear witness to this great achievement.
The World Health Organization (WHO) congratulated Egypt on its unprecedented progress towards eliminating hepatitis C, becoming the first country to reach the “gold level” on the path to eliminating hepatitis C according to WHO standards.
Achieving the gold level means that Egypt has fulfilled the programming requirements that lead to reducing number of new infections and deaths resulting from hepatitis C to levels that qualify the country to eliminate the hepatitis C epidemic.
Globally, there are 58 million people living with chronic hepatitis C infection. Although there is no vaccine available for the disease, it can be cured by taking short-term, highly effective treatments that last 8-12 weeks. However, there are 4 out of 5 people living with hepatitis C. The liver C of the world do not realize that they have an infection, and that infection can cause liver disease or cancer, unless it is treated or cured.
Egypt diagnosed 87% of people living with hepatitis C, and provided curative treatment to 93% of people diagnosed with it, which exceeds the goals set for the organization’s gold level, which is diagnosing at least 80% of people living with hepatitis C, and providing treatment to at least About 70% of people diagnosed with it.