28 June 2016 – Under the patronage of H.E. the Minister of Health and Population, WHO convened a technical meeting from 13 to 15 June 2016 to discuss the current status and prospects of continued implementation of the national strategy for prevention, control, care, and treatment of viral hepatitis in Egypt.
3 days of technical discussions involving more than 120 technical experts from all relevant sectors of the Ministry of Health and Population, Egyptian academia, independent researchers, national experts, WHO technical programme at the WHO Regional Office for the Eastern Mediterranean, the WHO country office in Egypt, as well as the World Bank's North Africa and Middle East office. Technical experts worked together to review the 7 pillars of the "Plan of action for the prevention, care and treatment of viral hepatitis, 2014–2018", that was launched officially in October 2014 in order to develop an operational plan that will guide the implementation of hepatitis-related activities in Egypt until the end of 2018.
Participants were divided into working groups over the first 2 days to review the 7 pillars: blood safety, hepatitis B vaccination, hepatitis surveillance, infection control, treatment, communication, and research. The technical working group reviewed the 2014–2018 plan and worked together to finalize an operational plan containing exact activities, timeline and responsible entity for implementation, monitoring indicator and budgeting for all agreed activities. During the third day, experts concluded and compiled the recommendations and developed core indicators to start a monitoring and evaluation system for the plan of action. The experts agreed to develop a monitoring dashboard with quarterly reporting of the progress of implementation.
The developed draft will be circulated to all concerned experts to review before presenting the new document at a stakeholder meeting that will be organized during the upcoming World Hepatitis Day 28 July 2016.
