07:21 PM
Saturday, January 21, 2023
Books – Ahmed Gomaa:
Nevine El Kabbaj, Minister of Social Solidarity, inaugurated the second session of the Arab Forum for Women’s Health, which is organized by the Egyptian Society for Cervical Cancer, in partnership with the Ministries of Social Solidarity, Health and Population and the Unified Procurement Authority, and under the auspices of the League of Arab States.
The Minister of Solidarity and Attendance inspected the “Diyarna” exhibition for handicrafts and heritage, which is organized on the sidelines of its activities, where she met the exhibitors, praising the exhibits and products displayed inside.
She thanked the Egyptian Society for Cervical Endoscopy for organizing the Arab Forum for Women’s Health in its second session, stressing the importance of presidential initiatives to promote women’s health and combat health problems that threaten women, such as obesity.
She stated that raising awareness is a primary goal of the forum, especially obesity, which causes serious health problems, and which the Egyptian state is vigorously addressing to protect children, youth, and Egyptian women in particular.
Al-Qabbaj emphasized that the Ministry adopts the idea of educating women about the dangers of obesity and its direct money on causing cancer, especially breast cancer, and how to protect from it. Hence the idea of the forum in its second session (women – obesity – cancer) came.
She indicated that the Ministry can support the forum today in two main axes, namely, promoting awareness of the importance of women’s health and including it in all national policies and plans, and supporting civil society institutions interested and working in the development and health of women to implement prevention and early detection programs for tumors.
For his part, Major General Dr. Bahaa Zaidan, Head of the Unified Procurement Authority, affirmed the political leadership’s interest in supporting women’s health through various health initiatives, because it is the pillar of society.
He added that the authority contributed during the various presidential initiatives by providing medical supplies, with the highest quality and the lowest price, stressing that carrying out these initiatives is a challenge and the state has proven its worth and capabilities to take preventive measures to reduce the disease.
At the same time, Dr. Mohamed Hassani, Assistant Minister of Health and Population for Presidential Initiatives, explained that obesity is one of the health problems that constitute a burden on the government spending budget, noting that half of government spending is on obesity problems, which is estimated at 60 billion pounds.
Hassani added that Egypt ranks 18th in obesity rates, and 9th in breast cancer.
And the Assistant Minister of Health for Public Initiatives continued, that breast cancer in Egypt is at an early age compared to some countries, and the discovery is in late stages, but through the presidential initiative, it contributed to discovering 60% of cases in the initial stages, which increases the cure rate.
He pointed out that the state is interested in taking preventive measures, which in turn reduce the rates of spending on medicines, as the Egyptian state spends between 10 and 35% on medicines, compared to 10% in some European countries.