WHO Director General Hails “100 Million Healthy Lives“ Initiative

Director-General of World Health Organization (WHO) Tedros Adhanom said that his current visit to Egypt aims at benefiting from the Egyptian expertise in fighting Hepatitis C virus (HCV).

In an exclusive interview to “Extra news” TV channel, Adhanom praised President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi’s initiative of “100 Million Healthy Lives”. “This initiative has a significant impact not only in Egypt, but in the African continent as a whole.”

Moreover, WHO boss said that the organization is seeking to disseminate the Egyptian health initiatives.“We have to educate the community and raise awareness of disease prevention,” he added.

In addition, Adhanom predicted that Egypt will be declared free of HCV by end of 2019 .

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Noteworthy, last February, Egypt health ministry established 13 centers to treat African nationals with hepatitis C.

The initiative includes Burundi, Chad, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Djibouti, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Mali, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Tanzania and Uganda.

The initiative follows Egypt’s successful campaign to detect and treat millions of its own nationals suffering from hepatitis C.

Health Minister Dr. Hala Zayed revealed that about 30,375 million citizens were screened for virus C in February, as part of the campaign across Egypt.

The three-phase campaign is part of an ongoing attempt to eliminate the disease in Egypt by 2022.

In 2015 the WHO found that Egypt had the highest prevalence of hepatitis C in the world. Twenty-two per cent of Egyptian blood donors tested positive for the disease, and more than 40,000 people each year dies of liver failure and liver cancers associated with the disease.