The Egyptian Health Ministry stated on Saturday that it has screened 221 people so far in South Sudan, as part of President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi’s “100 million healthy lives” initiative aiming to provide medical examinations and treatment for Hepatitis C to one million people in African countries.
A statement from the Health Ministry said that dozens have already visited the “Long Live Egypt Africa” clinic in Juba once it was inaugurated several days ago.
President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi launched an initiative aimed at treating one million African nationals, announced during his speech at the end of the Arab-African Youth Forum back in Aswan in March.
Egypt’s Health Ministry pointed out that cooperation is being done with South Sudan’s Health Ministry to provide another team to Egypt’s medical team, which will screen and examine the teams in South Sudan and Egypt to better accommodate the citizens coming in to the Egyptian medical mission.
South Sudan’s Health Ministry also set up a tent in front of the Egyptian medical team center in Juba to provide for people wishing to receive the initiative’s health services.
The head of the Egyptian Ambulance Authority and head of the medical team for South Sudan, Mohamed Gad, said that the plan is to screen 10,000 South Sudanese citizens during the Egyptian medical team’s mission to implement the initiative, and to treat 1,000 cases infected with Hepatitis C.
Gad added that the Egyptian medical team and leaders of the South Sudan’s Health Ministry will visit several educational hospitals in Juba, to discuss the general standards required for the accreditation of training centers in the hospitals and specialties most in need.
He pointed to an agreement with the Health Ministry of South Sudan to train some of the nursing cadres at the Egyptian Health Ministry’s hospitals. He added that it is scheduled that 15 nursing cadres be dispatched each month for a year, for training in various specialties.
Egypt’s “100 million healthy lives” initiative was launched in October 2018 to screen for Hepatitis C and non-communicable diseases, targeting people aged 19 to 59 for scanning through PCR tests.
Edited translation from Al-Masry Al-Youm
