Ancient Egyptians excelled in the field of medicine and medication. The writings and paintings on walls of temples show that medicinal plants had been in use for medication for 3000 years BC. Egyptians also excelled in gynecology, ophthalmology, orthopedics, anatomy, physiology and mummification.

 

 

When Ahmed Ibn Touloon became governor of Egypt in the Abbasid era, he es-tablished the first hospital (Bimarstan) in Egypt to the south of al-Qata'ie city. Ibn Touloon cared for patients and provided physicians, pharmacists and medication. During the reign of Salah Eddin, many medical centres were established including (Bimarstan) in Alexandria and another one in Cairo called (The Ancient Bimarstan) which was established in (577AH-1181AD).

 

When Mohammad Ali came to power in 1805, a school of medicine was estab-lished at Abu –Zabal in 1827 and was later moved to Qasr Al-Aini in Cairo in 1837. The first school of midwives was inaugurated at Qasr Al Aini hospital in 1838. Appended to the school of medicine, a school of pharmacy was set up in 1829 and the first school of nursing was opened in 1928. The State's policy of today aims at introducing a new vision to reform health care system and health insurance through "Health Insurance for All" programme. This vision is based on developed institutional rules to achieve a comprehensive coverage of fundamental health services especially in the area of motherhood and childhood services, activate family planning programmes as well as providing medical and preventive medicine to face requirements of the problem of the rapid population growth.

 

Total health sector investments during (1981/82-2006/2007) reached about LE 33.2 billion, of which LE 26.1 billion were implemented by the governmental bodies and general entities and LE 7.1 billion came through the private sector. Health sector investments during 2006/07 reached about LE 2.75 billion against LE 350 million in 1981/82.

 

 

Health services have witnessed a clear improvement. This is shown through the improvement of the per capita  health services as a result of the continuous increase in the number of public, central and rural hospitals as well as the number of hospital beds. Moreover, there was a noticeable increase in the number of rural health units, doctors and nursing categories. In this vein, 10 general and central hospitals were established, thus bringing the total number to 381 units. A number of 230 rural health centres were added, thus the total number hit 4500, the number of rural hospitals were increased from 840 to 931 and the number of beds were increased by about 15,000 (from 170,000 to 185,000).

 

 

 

 There was an improvement in the citizens, health care and this is shown through the following:

 

*  Birth rate decreased from 38.2 per thousand in 1981/82 to 26.75 per thousand in 2006/07.

 

*  Death rate decreased from 10.4 per thousand in 1981/82 to 6.45 per thousand in 2006/07.

 

*  The average age expected at birth increased for males from 56.6 years in 1981/82 to 69.2 years in 2006/07 and for females from 60.6 years to 73.6 during the same period.

 

*  A successive improvement in the reproduction health, represented in the fol-lowing indicators:

 

-  Reproduction rate decreased  from 5.3 child per woman in 1985 to 3.1 in 2005. There was a target to reach 2.4 child per woman in 2012 and 2.1 in 2017.

 

-  Number of family planning centres increased from 4400 in 1992 to 6550 in 2007.

 

-  Newly born babies death rate (Less than one year) decreased from 71 per thou-sand in 1981/82 to 17 in 2006/07.

 

-  Children death rate (Less than 5 years) decreased from 53.7 per thousand in 1992 to 24.6 in 2006.

 

-  Mothers' death rate at pregnancy and post-natal stages dropped from 174 per 100,000 in 1992 to 62.7 in 2006.

 

-  The ratio of birth cases under medical supervision increased from 43.4% in1992 to 78.6% in 2006.

 

*  Providing free vaccination for all children against the fundamental diseases and the number of beneficiaries hit approximately 15 million children.

 

*  The ratio of children who were vaccinated against paralysis were increased from 87.9% in 1990 to 94.9% in 2005.

 

*  The ratio of children (12-32 months) who were vaccinated against measles in-creased from 82% in 1992 to 95.6% in 2003.

  

 

The State has provided a comprehensive strategy for fundamental health care, in the framework of applying health reform policy. The State's policy is based on three aspects:

 

-  Implementing the family medicine model to provide an integrated group of high-quality health care services for all family members.

 

Caring for the disabled and promoting health systems

 

-  Providing services, in accordance with the criteria liable to evaluation, activa-tion and encouragement of society participation.

 

This strategy aims to provide health care for children, men and women of different age categories as well as offering a package of public services.

 

 

 

The State health policy is based on extending health insurance coverage to in-clude all children, students, and a large number of citizens. This could be attained through developed institutional rules to achieve a comprehensive coverage of fun-damental health services in a settled  and permanent way. The number of the insured in 2006/007 reached about 38.7 million beneficiaries at a ratio of 53% of Egypt's population. The total cost of medicine that the insured beneficiaries received reached LE 549 million, in addition to LE 500 million paid to foreign medical bodies to provide health and medical services for those insured everywhere.

 

 

Within the framework of the State's keenness on paying due attention to the low-income brackets through providing state-financed treatment, the number of patients who got state-financed medical treatment reached about 1.162 million where the state-financed medical treatment expenses reached LE 1.487 billion in 2006.

 

 

Within the framework of the continual efforts in the field of health services and providing medicines and vaccinations for children the following has been achieved:

 

-  The average annual subsidies of insulin and infant milk reached about LE 118 million, and about LE 213 million for vaccines.

 

-  The rate of infectious diseases dropped from 60% to less than 15%.

 

-  The death rate among newly born children decreased from 71,000 to 17,000.

 

 

Within the framework of the State's keenness on paying due attention to citizen's health, 708 medical teams were sent to the remote and desert areas that urgently need medical services. Moreover, a sum LE 200 million was allocated as an additional fund to activate the role of these teams on providing health services for patients. Such teams attend to examining citizens medically and providing medicines for free. These teams were located in the public and central hospitals.

 

 

Pharmaceuticals are considered a strategic commodity that have its great impor-tance, where the State is keen on activating pharmaceutical policies based on providing medicine for all citizens.

 

The State subsidized 278 pharmaceuticals for the treatment of chronic diseases such as tumor, renal failure, hepatitis and high blood pressure, in addition to subsi-dizing insulin and imported infant milk. The total expenditure on medicine con-sumption has reached about LE 11 billion in 2006 of the total health expenditure that amounted to LE 33 billion. The State reorganized the procedures of registering the pharmaceutical products and modernizing the pharmaceutical registration in accordance with the recommendations of the World Health Organization. These procedures meet the needs of local market and double the Egyptian pharmaceutical exports that reached about $ 120 million to about 70 countries and foreign markets.

 

 

In 1997, Egypt established a regional blood network with the aim of establishing 24 blood centres all over the country. This network is expected to be completed in 2008 with the aim of establishing a blood centre in each governorate. As for the blood banks in hospitals, they will be transferred to storage blood banks to gain their needs from the central blood banks.

 

 

The World Health Organization (WHO) praised the efforts that Egypt has made to combat Bird Flu. The statistics presented from Egypt supported strongly the early treatment of this disease. Moreover, the State has allocated LE 120 million to produce Bird Flue vaccine locally to vaccinate birds against bird flu.

 

 

The population sector projects remarkably contributed to achieving balanced population growth. Egypt has adopted a comprehensive approach to woman and family planning issues. Reproductive health and woman's health approaches were adopted right from childhood through pre-marriage to post-marriage periods. All means were provided to help woman achieve her role in a medical and social way. The population and family planning strategies are based on the following:

 

- Reinforcing the mobile clinics in slums.

 

- Providing the latest contraceptives.

 

- Promoting public awareness and providing medical teams in medical units.

 

The population national policy aims at:

 

1- Reducing population growth rate.

 

2- Achieving the best geographical population distribution.

 

3- Promoting demographic properties.

 

4- Controlling population growth rate and reducing annual increase rate to 0.1 %, as the population in Egypt reached about 73 million.

 

Family medicine is the underpinning of the unified comprehensive health insur-ance system in Egypt over five years. It aims at providing health services and studying the society's health problems so as to find the appropriate solutions for about 80 % to 90% of the cases.

 

This system has been implemented in 18 governorates through a number of 845 health units, providing a physician for every 500 families and so each family gets about 70% of health services in the nearest health unit. These services are almost precautionary services that include children vaccinations, first-aid health services, pharmaceuticals, motherhood and childhood care as well as family planning and laboratory tests. In light of this medical system, each family has a medical record that contains the family's medical and genetic history.

 

 

Curbing the problem of overpopulation is considered one of the State's major priorities in the current phase through increasing the number of those targeted to use contraceptives.

 

Salient Achievements in the Field of Family Planning:

 

-  Contraceptive usage rate has reached 63.3%, causing a decline in the fertility level to reach 3.08 children per woman.

 

-  Rural pioneer women made 3.91 million family planning awareness visits to 486,000 families (1.8 million women).

 

-   The number of family planning services centres rose to 6550.

 

-  A number of 100 new mobile clinics were equipped to provide reproductive health and family planning services in slums, bringing the number of mobile clinics to 590.

 

-  A number of 640 physicians and nurses were trained on offering family plan-ning services, and a number of 730 physicians and specialists were trained for the same job.

 

 

The Information, Education and Communication Centre affiliated to SIS, plays a prominent and active role in the field of population media in Egypt, coordinating with the Ministry of Health and Population through audio-visual media and direct contact that is carried out by internal media centres, performing the following activities: (Public, dialogue, youth, cultural seminars, artistic and literary competitions and movies) to raise public awareness of the dimensions of the population problem.