Egypt’s Minister of Health and Population Dr Hala Zaid announced that Egypt will be providing Hepatitis C testing and treatment for 14 African countries which have a high Hepatitis burden.
The campaign will be implemented with the support of the World Health Organization and is expected to reach at least one million people.
The 14 countries are Burundi, Chad, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Djibouti, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Mali, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Tanzania and Uganda.
“Egypt has pledged to provide technical support, expertise and screening software, as well as free treatment for one million of our African sisters and brothers with hepatitis C for 3 months as part of our role on the continent. We are following the WHO screening and treatment guidelines,” Dr Zaid said during the opening of the African Hepatitis Summit 2019 in Kampala, Uganda.
The WHO Regional Director for Africa Matshidiso Moeti welcomed Egypt’s support noting that viral hepatitis C was an increasing health challenge in the region.
The WHO says Egypt has one of the world’s largest Hepatitis C epidemics with almost 40,000 people dying annually of liver failure and liver cancers associated with the disease.
There is no vaccine for Hepatitis C. The WHO says prevention of infection with Hepatitis C virus infection depends upon reducing the risk of exposure to the virus in health-care settings and in higher risk populations
The WHO estimates that more than 200,000 people in the WHO African Region die annually from complications of viral Hepatitis B- and Hepatitis C-related liver disease, including cirrhosis and liver cancer.
The WHO says that more than 10 million people in the region are infected with Hepatitis C, with the most probable cause being unsafe injection practices within health facilities or communities.
