Egypt's Ambassador to Ethiopia Mohamed Idris has recently received the renowned British-Egyptian heart surgeon Sir Magdi Yacoub and his medical team who are currently paying a visit to Addis Ababa from July 13th to 17th. Sir Yacoub and his medical team have left Egypt heading to Addis Ababa for the purpose of performing immediate cardiac surgeries for free for the children and adults of Ethiopia who are suffering from congenital heart defects. The medical team are also planning to perform a number of cardiac catheterizations on the sidelines of their humanitarian mission to Addis Ababa. A special Iftar banquet will be held at the Egyptian embassy in Addis Ababa on Tuesday July 16th in the honor of Sir Yacoub and his team in the presence of the Ethiopian health minister alongside senior officials. Moreover, a press conference will be convened later at the Cardiac Centre of Ethiopia (CCE) where the cardiac surgeries are planned to be performed. Chain of Hope Sir Magdi set up Chain of Hope in 1995. "I modeled it on a French charity," he tells heartwire. "What we are trying to do is provide treatment for children in developing countries where there are no opportunities for doing this type of surgery. We do this in two ways: first, we bring kids to the UK for treatment, where they stay with host families. Although we know this is only scratching the surface of the problem...these children need to be treated, they should not be hopeless cases left to die; second, we go to developing countries to treat children. In some places, we establish units, like in Mozambique, where different teams come to operate. Then the service will go on for longer periods of time and have more impact." Surgeons and medical teams donate their time and services free of charge. The charity works in Cameroon, Egypt, Ethiopia, Jamaica, Kenya, Lebanon, Mauritius, Morocco, Mozambique, Nigeria, Pakistan, Palestinian West Bank and Gaza Strip, Senegal, Sudan, Togo, United Arab Emirates, and Zimbabwe. It has also brought children to the UK from Eritrea, Iraq, and Romania. Sir Magdi explains that the charity also tries to identify countries that can do their own research. "We have a really brilliant student from Mozambique who's coming to do a PhD in London on problems concerning neglected heart diseases, conditions neglected by the international community because we don't see them every day. But when we go to these countries we see children dying of endomyocardial fibrosis, for instance. Research is very important, even given the lack of facilities, because it makes people there aware of the size of the problem and that they need to solve it themselves, albeit with help."
