22 September 2025
Excellencies, colleagues, friends,
When we speak about liver disease, statistics can be overwhelming.
But sometimes, a single life can shed light on an entire nation’s struggle against illness.
Many of you will know Abdel Halim Hafez—the legendary Egyptian singer whose voice still moves hearts across the Arab world.
He suffered liver damage from schistosomiasis― the most pressing public health challenge in Egypt during his lifetime. He died young, in 1977, from complications that we know how to prevent and treat today.
From the 1950s to the 1980s, the Egyptian Ministry of Health ran large treatment campaigns to control schistosomiasis. At the time, the medicine was given through injections. But because the needles and syringes were reused on a massive scale, these campaigns unknowingly spread another disease—hepatitis C.
What began as an effort to fight one illness ended up fueling one of the world’s largest hepatitis C epidemics.1
By the 1990s, with testing finally widely available, it became evident that hepatitis C had overtaken schistosomiasis as the leading cause of liver disease in Egypt. The country carried the highest prevalence of hepatitis C globally.
In 2018, Egypt launched the largest hepatitis screening effort ever undertaken. Millions were tested and treated through the “100 Million Healthy Lives” campaign. Just a few years later, Egypt has achieved gold-tier elimination status―a turnaround once thought impossible, but now a model for the world.
Pakistan is stepping forward with the same bold vision: to test and treat half its hepatitis C population by 2027. That ambition deserves our full support. Because elimination is not only about saving lives― it is about safeguarding the futures of millions.
The stakes could not be higher. In the Eastern Mediterranean Region today, 27 million people are living with chronic hepatitis—12 million with hepatitis C and 15 million with hepatitis B. In 2022 alone, we recorded 183,000 new hepatitis C cases—the highest incidence in the world—alongside 86,000 new hepatitis B cases. Nearly 100,000 people lost their lives that year.
As the experience of Egypt has shown, these tragedies are entirely preventable. And we are making real progress. Our Region delivered 50 per cent of all hepatitis C treatments worldwide in 2024. We need to maintain this momentum to achieve elimination by 2030.
I will conclude by thanking Egypt for its leadership, and I warmly welcome Uganda, Malaysia, and Brazil to the Leadership Circle.
Abdel Halim’s voice was silenced too soon by liver disease. Today, our voices together—through health diplomacy and collective action—can move us closer to a world where no more voices are silenced by preventable illness.
