Schools in Egypt are turning healthier as the government is moving ahead with several projects that aim to improve the health of citizens.
A statement by the Ministry of Health said that Egyptian schools were among the best five in Africa in applying international standards of promoting health.
The health-promoting standards were carried out in schools in 12 cities across the country in cooperation with the Ministry of Education and the World Health Organization.
Health ministry spokesman Hossam Abdel Ghaffar said that field visits are conducted periodically to evaluate and follow up the implementation of these standards in the selected schools.
These measures aim to make the school a place that improves the health of children and limits harmful health practices, while following up on medical examinations, vaccinations, and proper nutrition for students as well as monitoring food requirements of school educators and urging students to follow healthy lifestyles and exercise sports activities.
According to the World Health Organisation, a health-promoting school is one that constantly strengthens its capacity as a healthy setting for living, learning and working.
It added that these schools foster health and learning with all the measures at its disposal as well as engage health and education officials, teachers, teachers’ unions, students, parents, health providers and community leaders in efforts to make the school a healthy place.
The schools also strive to provide a healthy environment, school health education, and school health services along with school/community projects and outreach, create health promotion programmes for staff, nutrition and food safety programmes, opportunities for physical education and recreation, and programmes for counselling, social support and mental health promotion.
The schools, the WHO said on its website, implement policies and practices that respect an individual’s wellbeing and dignity, provide multiple opportunities for success, and acknowledge good efforts and intentions as well as personal achievements.
Wael Abdel-Rizq, Head of the Health Care and Nursing Sector, stated that 36 schools were selected to apply these standards in 12 governorates, namely Qena, Sohag, Fayoum, Assiut, Beheira, Alexandria, Gharbia, Sharqia, Dakahlia, Damietta, Kafr el-Sheikh, and Qalioubia.
Mohamed Abdullah, Head of the Central Administration for Integrated Healthcare, said that training is being given to school officials, environmental and population education officials at the level of directorates, health and educational departments, in addition to health units, on international standards for health-promoting schools, executive policies and work guides.
Since 2014, the Egyptian government has been pushing ahead with projects to upgrade the health sector, announcing a package of urgent health measures to improve the health conditions of citizens and at hospitals.
The ambitious plan included developing the health infrastructure through the implementation of the new comprehensive health insurance system in addition to a package of health reforms to accelerate the provision of service to citizens quickly in line with international quality standards.
The presidential initiative ‘100 Million Healthy Lives’ is one of the most important achievements in the health system, which has been a success in early monitoring and treatment of chronic diseases for all groups of the Egyptian people.
The presidential initiative, which took place from October 2018 until April 2019, included detecting hepatitis C and non-communicable diseases.
Data showed that the initiative has contributed to reducing the rate of new infections with the virus by more than 92 per cent annually, and more than 60 million have been examined nationwide.
The initiatives under the umbrella of ‘100 Million Healthy Lives’ also included the launch of liver cancer early detection and treatment initiative in March 2022, which is an extension of the Hepatitis C and non-communicable diseases initiative.
The efforts of the ‘100 Million Healthy Lives’ initiative also included the launch of the presidential initiative to eliminate waiting lists for critical interventions in July 2018, with the aim of reducing the waiting period for surgical interventions and alleviating the financial burden on patients, at a total cost of 6.2 billion Egyptian pounds so far, as 1.4 million citizens have been registered on system and 1.2 million citizens have been treated.
The initiatives also included the launch of the presidential initiative for early detection of anemia, obesity and stunting in February 2019.
A total of 11.2 million primary students were examined out of a total of 15 million students targeted for the current academic year.
The government allocated LE310 billion for the health sector in the 2022/2023 budget, while state spending on the sector stood at LE128.1 billion in the draft budget 2022-2023.
Meanwhile, a total of 1,139 projects have been implemented, at a cost of LE27.6 billion to establish, develop and raise the efficiency of hospitals since 201.
Medical and preventive services through 2,000 hospitals affiliated to various authorities in the country, according to data released by the Health Ministry.
