The Health and Population Ministry announced on Saturday that it will target the treatment of 300,000 hepatitis C patients in 2016, adding that local medication for the disease is sufficient to cover the number.
Waheed Dous, head of the ministry’s National Committee for the Control of Viral Hepatitis (NCCVH), told Al-Masry Al-Youm that the ministry plans to increase the number of hepatitis treatment centers to 100 across Egypt’s 27 provinces.
Egypt has the world’s highest rate of hepatitis C infections. The annual mortality rate for the disease stands at 40,000 and at least 14 percent of the population is estimated to have the virus.
Edited translation from Al-Masry Al-Youm
