Egypt’s Deputy Minister of Health and Population, Dr Amr Kandil, represented the country at the 16th BRICS Health Ministers’ Meeting hosted by India. The summit was held under the theme “Building Resilience, Innovation, Cooperation and Sustainability”.
Delivering greetings from Minister of Health Khaled Abdel Ghaffar to the Indian host government, Kandil emphasisedon Friday the critical importance of deepening co-operation among BRICS member states to tackle shared global health challenges.
During the summit, Kandil highlighted Egypt’s recent progress in restructuring its healthcare sector, pointing to the rollout of the Universal Health Insurance System as one of the region’s most ambitious health reform programmes.
He also outlined Egypt’s major public health achievements, noting that the country has eliminated polio, malaria, trachoma, lymphatic filariasis and visceral leishmaniasis, successfully controlled hepatitis B among children, and attained the World Health Organisation’s gold-tier pathway towards the elimination of hepatitis C. Kandil highlighted Egypt’s efforts to strengthen early warning and disease surveillance systems, expand programmes to combat antimicrobial resistance, and enhance public health preparedness.
He added that Egypt has reduced tuberculosis incidence by more than 60% over the past two decades and is pressing ahead with its National Digital Health Strategy through the expansion of electronic medical records, telemedicine services and artificial intelligence applications across the healthcare sector.
Kandil also highlighted Egypt’s flagship presidential health initiatives, led by the 100 Million Healthy Lives campaign, which has benefited more than 60 million citizens, alongside the Decent Life initiative and the National Food and Nutrition Strategy.
Concluding his remarks, Kandil stressed that co-operation among BRICS countries represents a strategic opportunity to advance global health security, reaffirming Egypt’s commitment to working with member states to build more resilient, innovative and sustainable health systems.
