Egypt seeks to generalize the country's “100 Million Health Initiative” to other African countries, announced Egypt's President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi.
The 100 Million Health Initiative, launched in October 2018, aimed to screen more than 52 million citizens for hepatitis C (HCV). The Health Ministry has vowed to completely eliminate the disease from Egypt by 2022.
So far, Egypt has succeeded in examining more than 60 million citizens under the umbrella of the health initiative, and provided free nationwide treatment through government centers for more than one million citizens struck by the virus.
Speaking at a UN High-Level Meeting on universal health coverage on the sidelines of the 74th UN General Assembly meetings in New York, Sisi asserted that healthcare is a top priority for the country and that Egypt has started implementing the first phase of the comprehensive health cover for the Egyptians.
"We launched several initiatives including eliminating the critical surgical operations lists that covered about 250,000 patients."
Egypt chairs the African Union for 2019, and Sisi stressed that his country is seeking to spread the initiative to other African countries in cooperation with the World Health Organization (WHO), within the framework of the African Union Agenda 2063.
“Moreover, we shed light on the health problems facing women and children in Egypt through the initiatives of “Supporting Egyptian Women’s Health” and “Detection and Treatment of Hearing Impaired Newborns”. A campaign to detect obesity, anemia and dwarfing of schoolboys, was also launched.”
Half of the world's population continues to suffer from a lack of access to basic and adequate health services, which affects efforts to achieve Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 3: Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages, according to Sisi.
The president urged the development partners to work on finding solutions for a better life for all citizens and promote primary health care as a key human right to a decent life, noting that universal health care efforts can only be achieved through access to medicine and health technology.
“I would like to express appreciation to the 5-year vision (2019-2023) of the World Health Organization that works on extending the healthcare umbrella for all peoples without exception,” noted the President.
