Madbouly gov’t’s achievements: Egypt receives Gold certificate for eliminating Hep. C

CAIRO - 3 June 2024: Over the past years, the Egyptian government has accomplished great achievements, led by Dr. Mostafa Madbouly, the Prime Minister, who submitted the government’s resignation Monday. 

Atop of these achievements is surveying and detecting 6 million Egyptians within the 100 Million Health Initiative, which was launched by President Sisi.

In a major celebration in Cairo, and at the foot of the pyramid, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of the World Health Organization, handed over the golden certificate that Egypt was free of Virus C, so that the pyramids bore witness to this great achievement.

Egypt was able during the past years to eliminate Virus C as part of the efforts of the presidential initiative of 100 Healthy Lives. 

Several other presidential initiatives were also launched during which the government cooperated and coordinated with all sectors of the state for early detection of breast cancer and treatment of women with breast cancer within the Women’s Health Initiative and many other initiatives that served the Egyptian citizens.

Certificate of Egypt being free of Virus C

The World Health Organization 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. 

Reaching the gold level means that Egypt has fulfilled the programming requirements that reduced new infections and deaths that qualify the country to eliminate Hepatitis C epidemic.

Globally, there are 58 million people living with chronic hepatitis C infection, and although there is no vaccine against the disease, it can be cured by taking short-term and highly effective treatments that last 8-12 weeks, but there are 4 out of 5 people living with hepatitis C.

Egypt has diagnosed 87% of people living with hepatitis C, and provided curative treatment to 93% of people diagnosed with it, and this exceeds the goals set for the organization’s gold level, which stipulates: diagnosing at least 80% of people living with hepatitis C, and providing treatment for not less than 70% of people diagnosed with it.

Since early 2000, Egypt has strengthened its national programs in prevention and treatment, and in 2006, Egypt 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. The “100 Million Health” campaign resulted in screening more than 60 million people, treating more than 4.1 million, and locally manufactured direct-acting antivirals were a major factor in the campaign's remarkable success - with a 99% cure rate for hepatitis C among people who received treatment.

Through a patient-centred approach, Egypt has dramatically improved its patient safety practices and embraced the “do no harm” concept by implementing comprehensive measures for safe injection, blood safety and harm reduction.

New cabinet to be formed

President Sisi assigned Madbouly to form a new government of ministers with distinguished competencies, experience, and capabilities.

President Sisi requested that the new government work to achieve several goals, including: maintaining national security, continuing political efforts, following up on security stability, combating terrorism files, developing culture files, national awareness, and moderate religious discourse.

Sisi also placed the issue of building the Egyptian human being on the list of priorities, especially in health and education.