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The Egypt Ministry of Health
have been involved in various projects that regards the
health of the Egyptians. An example is the ministry`s
efforts regarding the eradication of the poliomyelitis, a
projected that started in 1990 and ended 4 years later with
good results. In order to achieve the goal, the EPI (the
Egyptian Expanded Program on Immunization) introduced step
by step the strategies that were recommended by the WHO (the
World Health Organization):
1 - to increase and sustain
the routine coverage with the OPV (the oral poliovirus
vaccine).
2 - to conduct the NID s (the
National Immunization Days).
3 – to develop surveillance
for the AFP (the acute flaccid paralysis). |
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The last step was to institute a
vaccination by the ‘mopping up’ method: the administration
of the OPV 2 doses in every house where` s a child that is
less than three years old. Other important project of the
Egypt Ministry of Health is the one of forbidding the FGM
operations. The FGM represents the mutilation of the female
genital organs they were forbidden to all doctors and
medical personnel in June 2007.
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The ministry
officially forbade all the GFM, no matter the moment
or the circumstances, after a girl of 12 years old
died after this type of operation. Officially, this
practice, that affects not only the Christian women
from Egypt but also the Muslim ones, and which were
taking places even since the pharaohs` times, was
forbidden in 1997 but the doctors were allowed to
make such operations in some exceptional cases. The
ministry decided to forbid all the doctors and
workers from the medical area, no matter if they are
from public institutions or private ones, to make
GFM. Any type of this operation is seen as illegal
and those who do it will receive severe punishments. |
A study made in 2000 shows that over
97% from the Egyptian women suffered this type of surgery,
to have their clit cut. The last victim of this surgery was
Bedur Ahmed Shaker, the 12 years old girl who died during
the operation that was made in a private clinic from Minya,
a town situated on Nile, in the South of Cairo. The girl` s
mother accused the doctors of negligence saying that her
daughter died because of the anesthesia and that she gave
about $9 for the surgery. The police arrested both the
mother and the doctor who was supposed to make the
anesthesia.
The Egypt ministry of health had some
problems of image also. Some private medical centers from
Cairo were closed by the authorities and the doctors were
arrested, as well as the lab workers and the middlemen,
under the accusation of violating the rules of the Doctor` s
Syndicate. These employees used to work after the midnight,
to do operations even if the hospitals didn` t had the
needed facilities for such important operations. Among the
operations were the ones of organs transplant. So the
personnel had to be arrested and the clinics closed.
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