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Highest Rates of New Hep C infections found in Egypt

http://www.zawya.com/Story.cfm/sidZAWYA20100809085249/Highest%20Rates%20of%20Hepatitis%20C%20Virus%20Transmission%20Found%20in%20Egypt

""The study opened our eyes to a disease burden similar in scale and challenge to the HIV problem in sub-Saharan Africa: Millions of cases of an infection for which there is no vaccine, no effective treatment, and where case management is so expensive that it is beyond the reach of most patients," said Dr. Laith J. Abu-Raddad, co-author of the study and assistant professor of public health at the Infectious Disease Epidemiology Group at the Weill Cornell Medical College-Qatar."

Alarming.
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Avatar universal
"While Egypt may be better off than many of its neighbors, its certainly not on a par with what anyone in Canada, the US, or Europe would expect - countries that most people do consider to be "modern" and "educated".   You might want to visit it and see it for yourself before you say it's "modern" or "educated".  "

Uh...welll... I didn't say that at all.  I merely posted the article link, a quote from the article and wrote one word of my own... "Alarming".  

Frankly, I think it's shocking that in this day and age, they are still doing things like that and the WHO should have something to say to Egypt about that.  It should be required that countries step up to the plate on things like this as a global citizen and support given where needed to enable them to do that if they are too poor to accomplish it without help.  Being in Canada, we should be extra-diligent here about immigrants from Egypt along with other countries.  Any new diagnoses of HCV here in Canada include the impact of the immigrant population from countries that are still way behind on safe sterilization practices.

That's my own perspective on it.
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Avatar universal
ROFLMAO.   I always keep my options open.  Hahaha

Trin
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179856 tn?1333547362
Wow you can't get a room for less thant $1200 - $1500 a month where I live............seriously (Unless you want to live in the projects).  Agree with James.   It sounds lucky but I imagine that the pay scale is much less as well. People from Oklahoma that I know think I am wealthy....until I break down the monthly bills and then they go uh oh ok you don't make squat.

Trin I didn't read your sentence right and well....there is a vast difference between can't get me to f an Egyptian isn't there??????  I'm losing it for real.

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Avatar universal
Can't get me to walk like an Egyptian.
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1117750 tn?1307386569
$900 a month for a house wow you are lucky here in England that would pay for a room, but yes meds are expensive ..
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Avatar universal
I have to vent a bit here.  Is it sad that the Egyptian goverment infected their own people?  Oh yes!  It's horrible.  But in these days of AIDS, who in their tiny minds thinks that reusing vaccation equipment is an acceptable practice?  The tards that decided that was a good idea should be injected once for every person that they infected with a randomly chosen vaccine gun.  

On the bright side, and yes, there is one here because this fiasco could be orders of magnitude worse.  Thank god its Hep C and not another Rwanda-equse AIDS epidemic.  At least with Hep C the adults have good odds of living long enough to raise their children (who are presumably healthy), instead of dying off and leaving a nation of orphans who now also have AIDS because they had to turn to prostitution in order to eat.

Quite frankly, Egypt as a whole doesn't qualify with what I'd consider to be "modern" or "educated".  Education is only compulsory to age 15 but not well enforced.  Only about 60% of the women are literate (able to read and write at all).  Nearly 20% of it's population live in "abject poverty" which means that they can't meet their basic needs for food, shelter, and clothing.  We're talking about people who are surviving on less than $25/month.  For comparison, less than 1% of the population of the US or Canada or most of Europe falls into the "abject poverty" category, 99% of the population (male and female) is literate, and education is compulsory until age 17 or 18.  

While Egypt may be better off than many of its neighbors, its certainly not on a par with what anyone in Canada, the US, or Europe would expect - countries that most people do consider to be "modern" and "educated".   You might want to visit it and see it for yourself before you say it's "modern" or "educated".  

And that last comment of his I can totally identify with - "case management is so expensive that it is beyond the reach of most patients".  I make "too much" to qualify for the medication assistance and I have medical insurance.  My insurance has a $225 per medication per month copayment. With Peg-Interon, Ribavarin, and Neupogen, that works out to $675 a month for my meds - almost as much as my house payment.  If they add any of the new PI's to it once that's approved by the FDA it will be as much as my house payment - $900/month.  HTH am I supposed to pay for that???
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Avatar universal
Hey, Trish,


I also posted this (see below and Frijole's commeny). It's a stunning revelation about the unsafe practices that can happen in a modern and educated country.

The reason Egypt had higher rates than its surrounding neighbors even before this spike was because it was more modernized, not less, and engaged in a nation-wide vaccination campaign against another health issue (can't remember now what it was called). In providing mas vaccinations, it inadvertently spread the virus by reusing contaminated vaccination equipment.

Sad, alarming....and I can see it happening more.
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