Egypt’s Minister of Higher Education and Acting Minister of Health and Population, Khaled Abdel Ghaffar, said that Egypt has shown a clear interest in fighting climate change and its effects on human health in its national strategies.
The minister pointed to the importance of enhancing the efficiency of the health sector and improving the quality of health services as one of the basic steps in confronting climate change.
He added that the entire world is witnessing the negative effects of climate changes that have become a reality, in the form of waves of extreme heat, extreme cold, torrents, desertification, erosion of agricultural land, and sea level rise.
Abdel Ghaffar stressed that what we suffer today from a global epidemic (COVID-19) is not far from climate changes and their effects that made the world a suitable place and a fertile environment for the spread of the virus and the difficulty of controlling it.
He noted that the efforts of the Ministry of Health and Population were not limited to the national campaign to eradicate hepatitis C, as this achievement was resumed through launching the initiatives for early detection of chronic diseases and epidemics.
The minister pointed out that the ministry is working on designing models for adaptation to the effects of climate change, evaluating the available capabilities, as well as reviewing the health aspect within the “National Climate Change Strategy”.
