24 July 2022 – With the support of USAID, the WHO country office in Egypt is conducting a nationwide injection safety project to help assess and improve injection safety practices among national hospitals and health care facilities in Egypt.
The safe use of injections is essential to avoid the transmission of life-threatening infections and to protect patients, health care workers and the community from avoidable risks, particularly in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic during which the number of injections being administered every year have significantly increased in Egypt and globally.
In early June, WHO Egypt conducted assessments of injection safety practices among health care workers in public hospitals in 8 governorates across Egypt.
Prior to these assessments, WHO held an orientation workshop for surveyors from the Hepatitis Control and Infection Prevention and and Infection Prevention and Control Central Unit at the Ministry of Health and Population to discuss the implementation process of the project and conduct pilot testing of the WHO-developed web-based application for an auditing reporting system that will facilitate data entry and retrieval.
As the WHO global campaign on injection safety recognizes staff training as a core principle, an expert team from the WHO country office will also be supervising a capacity-building training programme that is scheduled to take place in July in order to address any shortcomings identified during the assessment visits.
Over the years, WHO has been working closely with stakeholders in the area of infection prevention and control, occupational health, and laboratories, including senior officials from the Ministry of Health and Population, academia, and policy-makers to support the implementation of safe injection practices and guide the formulation of national policies, including Egypt’s national injection safety policy that was launched in 2018.
