Disease and How To Get It.

[Hafiz]

Disease and How to Get It.

Arab countries are pure and untouched vessels of Islam. Maybe this accounts for the chaos, corruption, violence, war, poor democratic and legal systems, maltreatment of women, ignoring the disabled, the economic disparities and backwardness of these sons and daughters of god.

Egypt is Sick

The Global Burden of Disease measure published in the Lancet has Egypt one of the sickest places on earth – hugely worse than Palestine, Indonesia and Jordan, worse than North Korea and about the same as war torn Libya. Russia is shocking. If you are worse than Palestine the Junta should just give up and commit Hari Kiri. https://www.thelancet.com/action/showPd ... %2931467-2

Tourists need this information – and should get it, whatever ‘getting it’ means.

Unfortunately health and medicine in most Muslim countries is not good (but in some cases heading in the right direction like Indonesia) and many have problems with careful planning including the outbreak/prevention of a disease like AIDS and others that lurk like treatment-resistant TB, Dengue that are on Egypt’s speedometer – a speedometer it doesn’t look at. With AIDS and the others, particularly ‘women’s diseases’, there is an avoidance, prudery or worse which means silence and therefore things that are manageable get out of control because not caught early.

So the general health situation is amongst the worst in the world and much worse than poorer countries but it gets worse in relation to particular diseases where there are social/moral/religious/legal sanctions.

Sex Education is No Good

Treatment for AIDS is now cheap, simple, avoidance is even simpler but requires direct information. Non treatment is costly particularly for pregnant mums/infected babies/contaminated blood supplies and infected people who spread it further.

In Egypt only 1 in 20 or young people under 24 years knows anything about AIDS and how to avoid it and this statistic is consistent with many others in Egypt caused by family avoidance of sex information and schools running a mile from biology.

With poor knowledge after 40 years of the disease ignorance is a superb basis – for the disease getting out of control.

At the other end of the spectrum moral giants like Nelson Mandela have led the continent into facing up to its responsibilities and others like Mugabe’s 1st wife (not the current horror) have done an excellent job from a very early date in the mid 80’s. Joyce Banda (horrible father) of Malawi has also done well as have other, generally female leaders, who understood what leadership involves other than hiding in a Heliopolis palace with a wife barely visible.

Woman to the Fore – in places where they have rights.

A significant part of all successful campaigns involves a fundamental shift in the rights of woman to resist sexual advances and demand their husbands observe protection and restrict other contacts. In ways we don’t yet fully understand AIDS has shifted power to women and children in some countries and away from men. Such things do not exist in most of Egypt but can have many benefits well beyond sex.

Fear Makes it Worse.

Given the sexual and drug-addiction content of infection, culture and control are big issues as is fear, probably leading to huge underreporting/avoidance of testing. If people don’t get tested they risk infecting others. Its therefore likely that public statistics are out – possibly hugely – and the government has little interest in stats collection even for non-stigmatized diseases.

If you do test and get treatment expect health workers to treat you badly even at university hospitals. https://link.springer.com/article/10.10 ... 016-7848-x A 2016 academic study of Tanta.

Religion is no Good.

In the west all the Christian religions combined in active programs to ‘manage’ public opinion and provide services. RAIN in the US was a leader although little happened in the UK. In Australia feisty nuns and many priests abandoned the rules and mucked in with the hard work whatever their congregations thought. The Papacy was clear about the supremacy of human rights over mere moral scruples. The position of al Azhar is unclear or in defiance of the science and common sense – as always. https://www.carolinarain.org/

The Intelligentsia.

Hollywood, famous writers and Broadway spoke with one calm voice and its productions penetrated the entire world. The major universities and Nobel Prize winners followed. In Egypt such characters are silent on all community issues for fear of imprisonment or social exclusion.

The Media.

The garbage Murdoch media did what you would expect whilst the serious did the pulling to get a rational debate going. TV as always was near hysterical. In Egypt the media does only one thing – what it’s told to do.

AIDS Is Emerging in Middle East Countries

Whilst AIDS infection rates have been low to date in the Islamic world many Muslim countries are increasing whilst those where it was worst have it under control.

Middle East Stats

The absolute numbers infected in the Middle East are low but inattention to risk/growth is appalling – compared with the rest of the world. This is hard to believe because we now know a lot about how to avoid AIDS. Here is an official graph of increases and decreases for 2001-11. Its near certain to have got worse since 2011. The growth patterns are clear.



On the other hand many and very poor countries where it was once large and out of control are now starting to turn the tide.

Between 2001 and 2012, the annual number of AIDS-related deaths in the Middle East/North African region more than doubled, while the worldwide number dropped by 16 percent. Poor countries like Mozambique, with terrible rates of infection and a poor health system, are getting on top of the problem. In Egypt its growing from a small base by 30-40% per year according to the UN. https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/un-voicin ... -1.3705661

The starting position was never good – but never admitted. In 2008 Egypt had a higher rate than India and China, higher than any country in the Middle East except Syria, higher than all of South America and higher than most of the decadent, promiscuous and depraved west. These are old figures but I’m ‘confident’ they are no better now and probably worse (UN figures).



So whilst absolute numbers in Egypt are small, rates of increase are not. Its increased by 76% between 2010 and 16 and new cases are increasing by nearly 30% a year. https://www.unicef.org/egypt/hivaids.

Almost unbelievably 2200 orphans aged 0-17 years have died and this raises other issues about prostitution/child abuse/child drug addiction that never get talked about by al Azhar or the Coptic Pope - but probably exist.

The WHO estimates about 100,000 injecting drug users in Egypt but that might be low - by a considerable degree. https://www.avert.org/professionals/hiv ... frica-mena

UNAIDS estimates about 23,000 prostitutes in Egypt, I guess this is a very low estimate, but with less than 1/7th using condoms is a sure open door into the broader community. http://www.unaids.org/en/regionscountri ... ries/egypt

Continued

[Hafiz]

The US Saves the World

The biggest single positive effect for the world has, as usual, been American in forcing drug prices down, inventing new AIDS treatments and George Bush II’s 2003 PEPFAR, the single largest health initiative for a one disease in history. Others contributed some spare change but even these morsels narrowed after 2008. Then and now the Islamic world has tended to ignore the problem or turn it into a moral Jihad.

In this and all other medical matters rich Muslim countries contribute near nothing in research and their financial contribution to the Red Crescent is pathetic (the Red Crescent is sad and barely functioning). Charity seems unknown to Islam except if its Saudi building mosques in the 3rd world or funding fundamentalism all over the place. Christian charity goes to all religions whereas Muslim charity goes to only one. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/President ... IDS_Relief

Heroic US initiatives get lost in a sleeze-bag/celebrity infected world of Geldoff/Bono but Sesame Street had a character who was HIV+ and talking to kids around the world with Bill Clinton alongside. History runs backwards. and this 5yo girl character called Kami was targeted only to the African audience. Lots of ‘people’ hate it but its won more awards than Egypt has debt and has an audience of 200 million.

Dybul was appointed by Bush to head up PEPFAR and later by the UN to run the whole show. He is an AIDS expert and gay and has never visited Egypt probably for the same reason as the Prime Minister of Eire – a compulsory, forced and violent proctologic examination by ‘doctors’ who believe in a single and world-discredited 1856 French medical pamphlet. Idiot Egyptian doctors.

In recent years the now Global Fund has had $US14 billion stolen mainly by African countries which is the standard story of diverting funds intended for the poor for the rich but no one fired and no one charged. What a pot of money. Unusually the Global Fund acted with venom and discounted new allocations until the frauds were dragged back. In part it worked and taught these hell holes their first lesson in a lifetime.
http://archive.boston.com/news/world/eu ... alth_fund/.

Egypt has asked for little from this fund, about the same as small Jordan and Palestine and about half of very small Tunisia and 1/35th of Indonesia and 1/6th of Pakistan and Iran. Less than ½ of Afghanistan’s grant and 1/8th of Morocco. For once someone isn’t interested in handouts. Amazing the backward and Muslim places that are facing up to reality. To be clear AIDS rates are exploding in Egypt but the medical inputs to the problem are very small and unchanging.

The Sudan has used 15 times the Egyptian amount of money for AIDS including thousands of programs for pregnant mums, drug addicts and over 115,000 sex workers. (odd that a fundamentalist Muslim country 1/3ed the population of Egypt and with Sharia law has 5 times the number of prostitutes – 15 times the rate of expenditure and maybe a more accurate picture of the true figures in Egypt) - Not the frankness you expect of a fundamentalist Muslim sharia law state. https://data.theglobalfund.org/results/SDN/HIV|AIDS

Some countries are just frightened, but what of. The Egyptian reporting to the fund is unique – it contains only the total spend and no broken down data, but Sudan and all others contain a complete accounting, of the services delivered/client targets etc. Surely a sign the money was just ripped off in Egypt as per usual. It would be irrational to expect otherwise.

The message is clear. There is lots of money for prevention and treatment programs just ask but expect to be asked for a clear plan and accountabilities.

Treatment and Prevention Programs That Don’t Work

The best strategy to limit new infections is absolutely clear – education and information – frank and clear. What is clear, although information is scant, is that Egyptians don’t care and don’t like condoms. https://internationalreportingproject.o ... of-condoms

Unbelievably – no its not because if there is something mad, Egypt is doing it – if you get tested and find you are positive you get no treatment or delayed treatment whereas every other country in the region – including Algeria and Morocco – you move automatically to anti-retrovirals. In Egypt that’s either mismanagement, atrocious medicine (very likely) or a clear punishment (more likely). All the other countries are planned, mechanical and certain whereas in Egypt it might depend which doctor is working on the day – often none. https://www.avert.org/professionals/hiv ... frica-mena

Getting people tested is important but doesn’t happen and about half the men/women with AIDS in Egypt don’t know they are positive which poses real risks for others. The reasons for this low figure are mixed and are discussed further, below.
https://www.avert.org/professionals/hiv ... frica-mena

Here are the UN stats which show that treatment in Egypt is a fraction of that in Morocco, Algeria and most of those other countries that have huge infection rates. The Muslim countries in general do treatment, except for torture, not well. These rates are only to 2015 and therefore the high growth areas like Egypt are now much worse – possibly negative treatment rates – my bad joke. Few would be surprised that Egypt has a problem that it deals with poorly whereas much poorer countries with small delivery systems do very well. It is my guess that the treatment coverage in Egypt is mainly in Cairo and Alex and not in regional and poor areas but, as ever, stats give no class or regional breakdowns for fear of what they would show.



Basic, standard and cheap action seems beyond some. For example the Global Fund distributes hundreds of millions in drugs each year. Very oddly Egypt’s take up on AIDS drugs from this source is about the same as Jordan. Jordan has a lower AIDS rate and a population 1/18th of Egypt. Something doesn’t add up. This suggests that the supply of cheap/free drugs is hugely out of kilter with the number of infections but this makes no sense – except that its Egypt. https://www.theglobalfund.org/en/portfo ... 074ff6d634

Distribution of drugs seems low in the region and likely very low in Egypt. On average across MENA, only one in five people in need of treatment are getting the medicines they need—the lowest coverage rate among world regions. That also means the future will be bad as few people get treated but continue to have sex. Its reasonable to assume that the taboos on AIDS are more extreme in Egypt than in Lebanon, Tunisia and Jordan.


Continued

[Hafiz]

Local Stats No Good

As is the case in all things the local statistics are thin and unreliable and even local researchers question the stats whilst using language that won’t get them into jail. They also say in 2016 that 1/3rd of sufferers die because of ‘caution’ in putting up their hand to get tested or because of insufficient access to the cheap UN drugs that are sometimes stolen and sold by local doctors/administrators. https://egypt.unfpa.org/sites/default/f ... 0Final.pdf

Clearly the 300,000 workers in the Egypt Health Ministry (no, not nurses and doctors, just the white and blue collar workers) aren’t doing their job in this matter and I imagine there is a fair bit of bureaucratic lying going on and extreme reluctance by those infected to come forward so maybe the real Egypt figures are higher. They are because the government of Egypt says 7,000 whilst the UN says 11,000 and these are old figures. https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/un-voicin ... -1.3705661

The international agencies particularly the UN appear to trust local stats because they don’t want to publish anything that will embarrass governments – like ‘you are not very good’. Some others publish that new infections are increasing by 25-30% a year and that in private reality the UN just doesn’t believe the Ministry stats. https://www.poz.com/article/spread-hiv- ... ids-agency. Who in their right mind would trust an Egyptian government stat?

Egypt ranks "behind only Iran, Sudan and Somalia in the Middle East," in terms of the rate at which the epidemic is spreading. Judging people by the company they keep isn’t always wrong.

NGO’s Do the Job or Not.

Difficult health jobs get ‘delegated’ by the Ministry to local and international NGO’s in HepC, the health of refugees, and a leader in this area will surprise you as it surprised me. Big NGO’s like UNICEF seem asleep at the wheel with their last stats 9 years ago and the so-called government National Aids Program avoids responsibility but complies with government priorities to keep the ‘wraps’ on everything but more of this below. https://www.unicef.org/egypt/hivaids

You wonder whether social/religious beliefs/fictions in the region lead to reluctance to face facts and al Azhar’s silence on the matter – except for denouncing sexual practice – is exactly what would you would expect whereas in other places, traditional institutions like the Catholic University of Louvain, ignore mad theology and lead the world in research and treatments. https://www.seattletimes.com/news/fast- ... searchers/

Local Social Factors

Local religious and political attitudes may affect the preparedness of people to get tested and this can only have negative effects. If tested they may fear they cannot rely on confidentiality of the results.

A complicating factor is that the poverty and unemployment of the last few years has delayed the average age of marriage and likely led to an increase in male promiscuity.

Appalling standards in rural areas in medical hygiene – including with syringes and reuse of syringes – can only have negative effects in in spreading the disease and other diseases. Whether the blood system is first rate is doubtful and machines for dialysis are legendary for spreading disease because they are not kept clean.

Gay and Straight Men, Drug Users and Hidden Groups.

By 2011 up to 9.9% of gay men and injecting drug years in Egypt had AIDS. That’s a large proportion of a small group and its 8 years ago. During the subsequent 8 years I can’t recall that much has been done – indeed the current Junta attitude to both drug and gay groups is much worse than under Mubarak so I suppose they are staying away from anything that will bring them to government/military attention.
https://www.prb.org/hiv-aids-in-middle-east/

Here is an old graph – the Egyptian government aggressively resists independent stats in this area – from 2009. Note the small gay, large hetro and drug user groups – very unusual by Western standards but maybe difficult to fully understand and possibly a sign that some irregular sex occurs in the male hetro group.



The explosive stats, if to be believed, is that most of the infected gay men (98%) know they are infected whereas the overwhelming number of so-called straight men don’t. That means the door is open and banging, so to speak, into the broader population. The rates of condom usage are also 3 times higher with gay men positive or negative when compared with the so-called straight men. http://www.unaids.org/en/regionscountri ... ries/egypt

Government Corruption

There have been allegations of government and medical incompetence – which is to be expected – and of corruption in reselling UN drugs – which is also to be expected – if these things didn’t exist it wouldn’t be the Egypt we know. No one has been investigated, fired or prosecuted which is also to be expected. If you can’t make money out of a crisis or someone’s disadvantage then what is the purpose of life and if people were disciplined all the western donors might work out the truth and stop sending trucks of money.

Strange and Helpful Bedfellows

The lack of education and continuous repression of the subject has taken a toll on the efforts made to combat the disease. Unexpectedly the Catholic Charity Caritas has been the main sponsor, and probably funder, of 19 Egypt based NGO’s active in this area – particularly in education. http://ennaa.org/test/about.php . You wonder what the Government of Egypt is doing and the Church of England and other Christian denominations in Egypt appear to do nothing whilst the dreadful Copts do worse than nothing with their crazed rants and deranged science on sexual conversion of gay men (but not women) by priests.

Caritas is taking a beating because its also been looking after Syrian and Sudanese refugees in Egypt for a long time and the government doesn’t like that. I think its also true that they are being accused of taking evil overseas money – from Germany, whilst the government sends cash pick-up trucks to the Gulf, Russia and North Korea to staunch the cash gap left by their friends Qadaffi and Saddam Hussein.

Caritas has been active in this area in Upper Egypt since 2013. If the Catholics can do it anyone can. https://egypt.unfpa.org/sites/default/f ... 0Final.pdf

Expert NGO’s Pushed Out

I need to check but expect that most or all of these NGO’s funded by Caritas have been closed down by the Government because of the NGO ‘area of interest in AIDS’ and the fact that most in the government hate NGO’s particularly the President’s security advisor the reviled Mubarak ‘intimate orifice’ Faiza Abou al Naga – whose health problems include multiple botched face lifts, dementia and daily applications of toxic make up which have sedimented for years on her face.

As Caritas is based in Rome and as all overseas funding of Egyptian NGO’s is now a criminal offence I assume all NGO’s have been charged and their staff jailed. Whether they have jailed the Cardinal Papal Nuncio in Egypt, I’m not sure. I think Military Intelligence has hacked Caritas’s web site because it doesn’t now function. (The point is very close to where every credible NGO in the world is out/been kicked out and the UN agencies just subcontract to the local underwhelmers)
http://ennaa.org/test/about.php

The immensely wealthy US FHI 360 is a world wide NGO expert in this area, used to do a deal in Egypt including helping the government - but now does nothing. I wonder why. https://www.fhi360.org/countries/egypt and suspect this is part of the Naga program to get rid of all competent outsiders.

I think all those western NGO’s with expertise in this area are out or kicked out.

Continued

[Hafiz]

Cretin and Repressive Government Approach

The government Egyptian AIDS Society are cretins although I can’t give you the names because their Board and staff are secret. Their functions are cloudy/a state secret also. One thinks that if funded by the Ford Foundation they must be doing something good. No. Their Ford money is used for a free access online-download of the film Blade Runner 2049 which adds a whole new dimension to Egyptian waste and foolishness. Maybe this movie is the new Egyptian AIDS prevention ‘discovery’ but no one could invent this Bedlam and waste. They have a pressing task, they are short of money and they fluff off in a silly cinema direction. http://egyaids.info/en/category/project ... oundation/

No clinics or hospitals in Cairo or Alex offer specialist services in this area and the relevant specialty, virology, in the medical profession is entirely silent on the matter. The media gives no practical information on how to avoid infection, where to get tested or treated and how to behave afterwards towards others or the infected.

How the international medical organizations avoid expressing extreme criticism of their Egyptian ‘brothers’ defies explanation.

For infected pregnant mothers I can find no evidence of the standard South Africa practice, and everywhere else, for ages – treat the mother early and the baby will be OK. If they have no basic program in this area they are close to evil.The dated statistics above in the oval image indicate that there is mother child infection which puts Egypt amongst the worst, or actually the worst, in the world in this eminently avoidable transmission.

Get Tested and go to Jail.

There do seem dispersed testing/treatment (?) facilities – in the Police Buildings in Beni Suef and the Prison Estate Assiut. In Alex its right next door to the Lower Egypt Jail, In Cairo about 100 meters from the infamous Ministry of the Interior and their bashing and killing cells. The one recommended by the government in Aswan doesn’t exist. http://egyaids.info/en/health-services-locations/. It would be not unreasonable to draw links between testing and the prison/torture and between these testing locations and ‘stay away’.

For drug addicts, gay men, the homeless, prostitutes and straight people with AIDS the proximity of your testing/treatment facility to the most brutal venues in Egypt would be clear. Imagine a London abortion clinic located next to a Catholic or fundamentalist church and then add the power of the police/law and torture and the listing your name on a government file or the front page of al Ahram.

Some practical examples of Egyptian medical and bureaucratic incompetence, laziness and lack of skill are mind blowing. https://worldpolicy.org/2015/12/28/hiv- ... een-war-2/ This author tried to interview the Minister and doctor who said to a UN AIDS conference that all was fixed in Egypt. Their Supreme Medicos didn’t turn up for the scheduled follow-up interview and subsequently refused to return all calls. All the journalists wanted were specifics to back up his extravagant claim. The Minister knew his lie would be uncovered.
Other Muslim Countries Do Better

Oddly given large scale tourism, AIDS rates in Turkey are low, public discussion frank, research thorough and published, and the quality of their scientists and doctors high – unlike Egypt. . http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/number ... ars-121432

It Will Get Worse

The 120-140,000 in jails (including the 60,000 in the political round up, many of them young) in Egypt create new risks for transmission and its fair to assume there are no education, condom or treatment programs going on in Egyptian jails – that would involve work and frankness.

It could be worse – half those infected in certifiable Russia won’t take the drugs to let them live because “HIV is a myth” – maybe it’s a western Jewish myth. https://www.scmp.com/news/world/russia- ... -who-think

These types of Brexit myths are sure to take off in Egypt.

The Government Will Give You AIDS

If your private life doesn’t infect you the Government of Egypt will. You wonder about the Egypt blood system – no you don’t’ you know its chaos and dangerous. In 2013 an academic study said that 4% of blood was Syphilis and HIV positive and over 4% HepC but of course these Egyptian academic authors of this study (all Cairo University at the time but maybe missing now) are Brotherhood terrorists and spreading lies about Egypt – 10 years prison, 15 if you can get a ‘good’ judge. https://www.omicsonline.org/open-access ... ?aid=22486.

This is not inconsistent with other later studies. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf ... /trf.13061. What is not clear from these studies is the adequacy of the system, if a system exists, to screen out the identified contaminated donated blood or whether the contaminated blood gets used. What’s your guess. What is clear is that as at 2010 (25 years after the risk was known) 24% of HIV infections were due to the government blood system which is required by law to be clean but which breaks the law with no one held accountable and no legal compensation paid. http://applications.emro.who.int/emhj/v ... 1_0258.pdf

So the government is spending big money promoting itself as a health tourism but its blood supply system will kill you If its blood supply system is no good how good are all the other aspects of the health system?

What adds riot to this mess are the Egyptian government initiatives that Egypt will become a world center in medical tourism and in Hep C in particular (a disease largely spread in its early days by gross medical incompetence). At one stage there was building of a new state of art medical city slightly north of Aswan. On the one hand they want to establish themselves as a place to get cured on the other they can give you fatal diseases from a basic medical product.

Don’t Get a Blood Transmission in Egypt.

The huge fresh yearly transmission of HepC via dialysis machines raises lots of questions including spreading AIDS – I wonder whether anyone keeps an eye on this.

Similar issues arise in relation to syringes and in late 2016 doctors were ordered (possibly system wide) by the Imperial Minister to reuse syringes and a Doctors Syndicate leader, Dr Mona Mina, (formerly elected Secretary General and head of this) went public on this saying don’t do it - following which she was charged with "disturbing security and social order, spreading panic among citizens, and defaming the state." https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/egyp ... -563330778.

There is a long history to this and firm evidence that the HepC infections via doctors produced few or no lessons. In 1990 carelessness/laziness led to 63/4 or 82 AIDS infections in a university facility in Gharbia. Three years later a western study found they had learnt nothing and there was HIV reinfection from poorly screened blood and careless techniques. And this was a university hospital/clinic. https://academic.oup.com/jid/article/181/1/91/897042 In 2000, 700,000 units of blood for donation also were checked and 45 were positive, according to UNAIDS. In 1997, 17 people were infected with HIV from tainted blood transfusions at one hospital. In 1993, more than 60 kidney dialysis patients at two centers were infected. https://internationalreportingproject.o ... onting-hiv

After the medical spread of HepC 30 years ago via used syringes you would have thought that a lesson was learnt – no – it wasn’t even learnt in 1990, 1993, 2000 and not in 2016. No wonder the PM Mahlab went to Germany for non-life-threatening medical treatment.

Syringes

For injecting drug addicts (at least 100,000 according to the UN but I think higher) there seems to be no education program or syringe exchange program which is odd because reuse of syringes spreads many dangerous diseases including AIDS. The rest of the world has had both for ever – even the bible bashing South of the US. (Indeed I can find no programs for drug addicts at all – except maybe for rich ones and delivered to their sons in the western clinics. I can find no programs in schools on drugs or sex, or anything much. This is expected because unlike the rest of the world local medical practice, hospitals and clinics are dispersed into small, often private, units with specialist functions). Opinion surveys conducted by Pew and others prior to 2012, now illegal, indicate dreadful knowledge of sex by the late teens.

The first reusable syringe was sold 17 years ago. The WHO was a bit slow on an issue that kills 1.3 million a year and has only mandated it quite late and the international agreement is that its effective from 2020 so Egypt is not doing anything good – its only meeting its UN minimum obligations

All is to change, unlikely, because ‘new’ smart self destructing syringes are to be manufactured in Egypt by, wait for it, Egypt's Holding Company for Biological Products and Vaccines (VACSERA) and the Ministry of Military Production. VACSERA is a publically owned front, its only facility is a down town office which is unlikely to be a Pharma. factory

Whether the syringes/free syringes will be made available to addicts I leave you to guess about a country where everything important is ignored or hidden behind locked doors.

Its likely VACSERA is just a lazy self-important importer of overseas drugs and doesn’t even list its import products. Just doing something anyone could do not something complicated let alone manufacturing anything local.

What these creatures will do isn’t clear. The cheap syringe that can’t be reused has been around for nearly 18 years and was invented by a 23 yo UK sailor/playboy – ‘Koska designed a syringe (K1) that could be made on existing equipment with a small modification. Simple and cheap. https://www.havaslynx.com/marc-koska-th ... ion-lives/

It costs the same/similar as a usual syringe so only a fool would not have adopted it ages ago – except if you liked reusing dirty syringes to make/save money. https://www.wired.co.uk/article/marc-ko ... ealth-2015 and https://www.forbes.com/sites/andrewcave ... 12d3c46f69

All of VASCERA’S guff is bull. Egypt has been manufacturing these syringes, with the only copyright approval to do so in the Middle East, from Upper Egypt since 2011 by an interesting company that sounds so good it can’t be Egyptian. Called Med el Dawlia ICO or ICO it’s a family owned company by the Khalil family. https://english.alarabiya.net/en/featur ... stry-.html

Its also likely that Egypt’s interest in this is stimulated by a more mercantile interest – the copyright ran out last year so they won’t now have to pay copyright royalties and this is not the first time they have behaved very oddly on medical copyright whilst people die. They wait for the copyright to run out whilst people die. Such is the great compassion of the Islamic religion/Islamic government of Egypt.
https://www.theguardian.com/global-deve ... ion-a-year

Of course medical treatment for the military in their large network of modern and expensive hospitals is quite different, if you aren’t a conscript, but that is another story.

Finis is more ways than one.

[Who2]

Well that's cheery reading for a Saturday morning.....
Ps: I feel a lot better now cheers...

[newcastle]

Well that's cheery reading for a Saturday morning.....
Ps: I feel a lot better now cheers...

You’ll be alright.

Assuming, like me, you’re not an intravenous drug user, wouldn’t risk entering an Egyptian hospital (even if your life depended on it) .......and where sex is a distant memory!

[newcastle]

The problem with any discussion about HIV in Egypt is the disconnect between what international bodies have to say, what the Egyptian government says, and what your gut tells you!

I have no argument with Hafiz’s analysis....although, unless they’re lying through their teeth, according to the government, there are quite a number of treatment centres throughout the country and all registered HIV+ patients receive free anti-retrovirals.

Yes....the social stigma and ignorance, even amongst the medical profession, is appalling. There’s still room for improvement even in the West!

There is currently a nationwide drive to test the entire adult population for HepC. I believe they’ve tested 35 million so far resulting in 10 million diagnoses....all of which receive ongoing treatment.

You’d think that they could have tested for HIV at the same time. Maybe they are.....but are keeping quiet about it.

For some years anyone requiring a work permit has had to undergo an HIV test and they deport HIV positive foreigners pretty promptly but, as Hafiz says, they seem to have their head firmly in the sand over the potential growth of infections amongst native Egyptians.

[Major Thom]

Wonders never cease!

[Hafiz]

Newcastle. Coverage of infected people is no good. The table above, under the heading of Treatment and Prevention Programs, has Egypt about the worst in the world as at a few years ago according to UN figures. Does anyone think that things have got better on health matters in the past few years? The difference between Jordan's use of the drugs and Egypt's under use of AIDS drugs confirms this.

The broader picture of political indifference to medical matters other countries take seriously includes HepC and even Polio where Egypt was one of the last places in the earth to abolish it - if indeed it is abolished. Incompetence, mismanagement and callous disregard describe all of these problems and failure to solve them. Infantile denial is another way of thinking about it.