CAIRO: One of Egypt’s leading women’s health organizations has won the top prize in the esteemed 2011 United Nations Public Service Award (UNPSA).
The winner — The Women Health Outreach Program (WHOP), an initiative undertaken by the Ministry of Health — will be honored at the awards ceremony in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania, on June 23rd, which was designated by the General Assembly as United Nations Public Service Day.
The Ministry of Health won first place for its WHOP initiative in the ‘Promoting Gender-Responsive Delivery of Public Services’ category. The UN PSA is the most prestigious international recognition of excellence in public service.
The UN Public Service Award recognizes the creative achievements and contributions of public service institutions which lead to a more effective and responsive public service administration in countries worldwide. Through this annual global competition, the UNPSA promotes the role, professionalism and visibility of public service.
Commenting on the award, Dr Dorria Saleh Salem, GM of WHOP and Consultant at the Egyptian Ministry of Health, stated “We are extremely honored to be recognized by the UN for our work as the first Egyptian national screening program, WHOP. This award serves to further encourage WHOP to continue in our efforts to provide services which will promote early detection of cancer as well as other diseases.”
“Since our inception, we have reached more than 77,000 women across the country and we earnestly hope and will exert all efforts to ensure that this figure be exponentially increased in the future.”
WHOP was established in 2007 with the strong conviction that since breast cancer’s pathogenesis is poorly understood, primary prevention is still a distant goal and thus secondary prevention through early detection is the only feasible approach at present.
In October 2010, WHOP announced the signing of an agreement between the Ministry of Health (MoH) and the Scientific Office of Hoffmann-La Roche. The agreement establishes cooperation in the mobile mammography units for nationwide access to screening, accreditation and qualification programs for the MoH, public awareness initiatives, and equipment and infrastructure necessary for the registration of patient data.
