Egypt sustains its turnaround against hepatitis C

Egypt has become the first country to retain the World Health Organization’s gold-level status on the path to eliminating hepatitis C, confirming that its progress has continued beyond its initial recognition in 2023.

The certificate, presented in Cairo on 14 October, followed a WHO review of the country’s work from 2023 to 2025. It recognises sustained progress towards elimination, not a declaration that the virus is gone.

The scale of the turnaround is striking. By 2023, Egypt had reduced hepatitis C prevalence from about 10% to around 0.38% in roughly a decade. Its “100 Million Healthy Lives” campaign, launched in 2018, screened more than 60 million people. According to the health minister, about 4.5 million people received free treatment using locally produced medicines.

Egypt’s health ministry also reported that deaths linked to the disease had fallen by 54% compared with 2018.

Maintaining those gains now means making hepatitis care part of everyday healthcare. WHO says Egypt has shifted from mass screening campaigns towards routine testing, diagnosis, treatment and prevention within its health system. Services are being integrated into primary care and health insurance, supported by stronger laboratory checks, disease monitoring and continued blood and injection safety measures. The aim is to keep finding and treating infections while preventing the disease from regaining ground.