Egyptian medical convoy arrives in Juba to treat African Hepatitis C patients

CAIRO – 26 September 2019: Egypt’s Ministry of Health announced on Sept.26 the arrival of a medical team in South Sudan, headed by Mohamed Gad, head of the Egyptian Ambulance Authority and supervisor of the external health relations sector in the ministry.

This, according to spokesperson for the Ministry of Health Khaled Megahed, comes as part of President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi's initiative to treat 1 million African Hepatitis C patients.

"The medical team's arrival came shortly after the opening of the first Hepadnaviridae unit at the Egyptian clinic in Juba, under the slogan 'Long Live Egypt, Africa'," the statement read.

Megahed said that the team was received by Egyptian Consul General in Juba Ahmed al-Bakri and the representative of the Ministry of Health in South Sudan, adding that the delegation headed immediately to the Egyptian clinic in Juba, which is provided with all the needed equipment, medical supplies, and medicines.

Megahed pointed out that the Egyptian medical team met with the minister of health of South Sudan, who praised the strong relations between his country and Egypt, especially in the field of health.

The Egyptian medical team and the WHO representative visited Juba's the Multi-Service Training Center as well as Juba's hospitals, laboratories and clinics to find out their needs, according to Gad.

Gad added that a joint team of Egyptian and South Sudanese medical cadres was formed and provided with a PCR device to detect Hepatitis C patients. Other workshops and lectures were organized on diagnosing and treating Hepatitis C virus.





The South Sudanese health minister requested more medical support, including dispatching more Egyptian medical convoys to Juba, according to Megahed, who clarified that another medical team will be dispatched to Chadian capital N'Djamena in October to offer the needed medical support.

In January 2019, Egypt’s Minister of Health Hala Zayed unveiled an Egyptian initiative to treat African people from Hepatitis C, starting with the Nile Basin countries that have an estimated 3.7 million Hepatitis C patients, representing 30 percent of the total number of infected people in Africa.

During a meeting with members of the Parliament's African Affairs Committee headed by Tarek Radwan, Zayed said that the ministry currently works to help the Nile Basin countries cure the cases that test positive for Hepatitis C and will send medical personnel from the private and public sectors to these states.

This initiative will help spread Egyptian medicine and open markets for it, Zayed said, adding that it offers an opportunity to export medicine to Africa and an opportunity to treat 1 million people infected with the blood-borne disease in the Nile Basin countries.

In April 2019, Megahed told Egypt Today that the Health Ministry is establishing 13 centers to treat African people from Hepatitis C, stressing that Egypt has made a significant progress in the treatment of virus C.