For the first time ever, Egypt is working towards establishing a program for issuing medical tourism visas to international patients.
In an article published on Egypt Today, Supreme Medical Tourism Committee Secretary General Ayman Abdel Aziz says, “20 hospitals will be ready in April to receive patients from abroad, and a guide to the sites offering medical tourism services will be issued.”
The program will offer medical tourists visas for heart, orthopedic, eye and other surgeries in the first phase. At the beginning, it will be offered for fifteen Arab and African countries, Abdel Aziz explains.
The decision to expand comes on the heels of the national anti-HCV program launched in 2014. The program has helped cure 1.4 million Egyptian citizens of hepatitis C, with 1.5 million more being cured over the course of 2018.
Last year, the president of the National Committee for Fighting Hepatitis C Virus Infections, Yehiya el-Shazly, made a commitment to making Egypt HCV-free by 2022. The Tour n’ Cure program was launched in February of 2017 to help expand the program to HCV-infected patients all over the world.
The medical tourism initiative grants international patients access to effective and advanced treatments for hepatitis C at a lower cost. The program has been supported by famous footballers Lionel Messi and Dani Alves.
Hepatitis C wait is over – Leo Messi vs. Melanie. #StopTheWait
Uploaded by Tour n Cure on 2017-02-21.
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