The Ministry provides all examinations and analyzes on children for free to detect obesity, dwarfism and anemia.

Dr. Hossam Abdel Ghaffar, spokesman for the Ministry of Health and Population, said that the road map to improve the health of Egypt’s school children through the health insurance system through the presidential initiative for early detection of obesity, anemia, and stunting for school children aims to build a generation free of diseases.

Dr. Hossam Abdel Ghaffar, the official spokesman for the Ministry of Health and Population, explained that there are specific goals and results for the presidential initiative for early detection of obesity, anemia, and stunting for school children, and the measures that are being taken by the General Authority for Health Insurance to take care of the health of the Egyptian child, stressing the importance of this initiative, which aims to reach to healthy children by conducting medical surveys for children in schools and providing free treatment to them within 5 years.

Abdel Ghaffar revealed the results of the initiative since its launch in 2019, as it achieved amazing successes, as in the year 2020-2021, where 8 million children were examined, and in the year 2021-2022, the number of the examinations reached 11 million and 199 thousand and 646 children.

By the end of the current year 2023, the number reached 82 million and 865 thousand and 680 children, with a decrease in the percentage of cases proven to be suffering from obesity, anemia or stunting, as the percentage in 2020-2021 was 38%, while in 2022-2023 it reached 22.7%.

Abdul Ghaffar added that the percentage of anemia cases detected through the initiative during the first year of its launch 2020-2021 amounted to 23%, while in 2022-2023 it reached 112%, and the incidence of obesity in the first year of the launch of the initiative was 13%, and it reached 8.7% in the year 2022-2023.

Abdel Ghaffar added that the initiative provides its services in 30,000 schools through 2,300 medical teams in various governorates of the Republic.

Abdel Ghaffar indicated that 250 fixed linkage clinics were equipped, in addition to the mobile teams, in addition to providing accurate and uniform length measures produced by Egyptian factories. This is within the initiative’s work system, pointing to work on conducting clinical studies and research within the initiative, in coordination with all concerned authorities, to identify the governorates with the largest number of infections, and to intensify work in them.

Abdel Ghaffar drew attention to the training system on which the General Authority for Health Insurance is based to train medical teams working within the initiative, as well as training data entry personnel, since the launch of the initiative, pointing to the training of 6,000 nursing staff and registration technicians during the current year only.

Abdel Ghaffar explained that the main causes of obesity, anemia and dwarfism in children are being investigated, and ways to develop awareness for parents and children, as well as discussing modern methods of diagnosis and treatment, and correct therapeutic feeding methods to prevent children from injury or help in the treatment system.

Source: State Information Service Egypt