In an effort to promote Hepatitis C treatment tourism, the Argentinean football player Lionel Messi arrives in Egypt on Wednesday. Attempting to refresh tourism in Egypt, the Egyptian government started a campaign in June to make Egypt a destination for patients from Europe and Asia to cure Hepatitis C at cheap prices. This campaign is supported by the Egyptian ministries of tourism and aviation. The visit was supposed to take place in December, but was postponed after the deadly bombing of St. Peter and St. Paul's Church, which took place on 11 December. Prime Pharma is the company which organised the campaign of Tour and Cure. The campaign primarily aims to motivate patients of Hepatitis C worldwide to receive treatment in Egypt. Tamer Wagih, Prima Pharma's chairperson, said in a previous statement that the campaign targets 120,000 tourists from the UK, Spain, Italy, France, Russia, Malaysia, and Turkey to receive treatment of Hepatitis C in Egypt. In the statement, the company declared Hepatitis C treatment in Europe costs around €100,000; however, according to the programme of the campaign, the treatment will not exceed €4900 in Egypt. In a previous report, published by the World Health Organisation (WHO), Egypt was declared one of the best countries in treating patients with the Hepatitis C virus. It was also stated that the price of a three-month treatment has dropped from $900 to $200 in 2014. This is not the first time that football stars have supported tourism in Egypt, as Egypt received Carles Puyol the previous year, when he came to demonstrate that Egypt is safe.
