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After Eliminating Hepatitis C .. Egypt Close to Defeating Virus B


Wed 12 May 2021 | 03:18 AM
Taarek Refaat

After the great success achieved by Egypt in the initiative to eliminate hepatitis C virus almost completely and treat about one million and 540,000 infected people and discover "curative treatments", the Egyptian government is preparing to achieve a new step in this field, targeting the elimination of "virus B", as measures to confront it recently contributed to a significant decrease in infection rates.

Decrease in "virus B" infections in Egypt

Although no cure has been discovered for  "virus B", yet, a government report based on data from the Ministry of Health indicated Egypt's success in reducing infection rates in recent years, with efforts to achieve a further drop in infection rates in the coming period.

According to a report, the decline in "virus B" infections in Egypt during the past years reached 77.8%.

Free vaccination and antibody

Hepatology and digestive system experts trace the start of the fight against virus B to the 1990s, when the Ministry of Health imposed free vaccination against the virus compulsorily on children, in about 5,000 health centers and units across the country, and the government also provided vaccination for adults in exchange for a small fee.

These moves were followed by other efforts aimed at conducting the detection of antibodies to "virus C" for 60 million citizens, and the result was the appearance of these bodies in approximately 4.8 percent of those tested. According to Ministry of Health statistics, they were treated for free as part of the "100 Million Health" campaign.

The World Health Organization had estimated the prevalence of infection with C virus in Egypt before the launch of "100 million health" by about 22 percent of Egyptians, but examinations for 60 million Egyptians revealed that the rate of infection was only about 3 percent.

Fewer casualties and an upcoming scientific revolution

Government reports estimate the rates of infection with "B virus" at about 4.5 percent of the population, before the launch of confrontation campaigns through "vaccinations" in recent years, but these rates decreased to "less than 1 percent" of the population during 2021.

Government sources, who preferred not to be named, say that the relevant authorities, whether the Egyptian Drug Authority, the Unified Purchase Authority, the Ministry of Health and Population, or the Supreme Council of University Hospitals are following with great interest the ongoing experiments on curative treatments for "virus B" being carried out in developed countries.

The sources add that the Egyptian state is seeking to cooperate with pharmaceutical companies to provide these treatments as soon as they are approved for use by the American Food and Drug Administration, so that they will be available to people with "B virus" in Egypt.

Children

According to the government report on "virus B", its prevalence rates among children under the age of 15 in Egypt are now less than 0.1 percent.

Mohamed Ezz Al-Arab, founder of the Liver Tumor Unit at the National Liver Institute and Secretary General of the Egyptian Liver Cancer Association, attributed the significant decline in the prevalence of "B virus" among children to the imposition of "protective vaccination" on newborns in Egypt since 1992.

In an interview with Sky News Arabia, Ezz Al-Arab explained that doctors and liver disease experts in Egypt estimated the rates of infection with B virus at about 1 to 2 percent after the decrease in infections.

Egypt will be declared free of "virus C" soon

Contrary to official reports, experts in liver and digestive diseases monitor a significant decrease in the rate of infection with C virus currently, as Egypt is one of the first countries in the world that came close to eliminating it permanently.

Ezz al-Arab says that the standards of the World Health Organization indicate that the existence of an infection rate of less than 1 percent in a country means that that country has eradicated the disease, explaining that the "year of the global goal" to achieve this is 2030, but Egypt preceded the countries of the world with the presidential initiative to eliminate On the virus.