Egypt's Minister of Environment Yasmine Fouad witnessed on Tuesday the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding for joint cooperation between the Egyptian Environmental Affairs Agency (EEAA), and Sanofi Consumer Healthcare in Egypt and Sudan. During the signing, Ali Abu Sunna, CEO of EEAA represented the Environment Ministry, and Sherif Omar, Director General of Sanofi Egypt represented his company which specialises in pharmaceutical industry. According to a statement from the ministry on Tuesday, the MoU aims at contributing to the awareness programs and initiatives launched by the Ministry of Environment and participating in the presidential initiative "Go Civilised, Go Green" which aims to raise environmental awareness among the society and implement awareness activities to protect and preserve the environment. During the ceremony, Fouad expressed happiness for the health sector's growing interest in environmental issues, given the close link between the environment and health, stressing that an integrated healthy ecosystem will ensure decent living on planet Earth, noting the importance of signing this protocol in view of the current global events resulted from the effects of climate change. She explained that these impacts would have an impact on food, water, buildings, production and other lifestyles, hence the Egyptian government's interest in working to integrate the environmental dimension in all sectors of the state. "The Ministry of Environment is working on expanding the base of partnerships with all segments of society to spread the idea of taking into account the environmental dimension in all sectors," she said. The MoU includes the launching of a competition for the public on the ministry's website that includes questions related to environmental protection and development and diseases resulting from air pollution, especially allergic diseases. The answers will be evaluated by the Ministry of Environment. The prizes include 2,000 bicycles provided by Telfast, one of the products of Sanofi Egypt. For his part, Omar said that raising awareness contributes a great deal to preventing the burden that can affect health and consequently the productivity of the individual in society. He added that his company's participation and support for this campaign aims to increase environmental awareness among the community, and it is a message of encouragement to all family members and all segments of society to address the environmental challenges and reduce air pollution, which directly affects human health and results in exposure to many diseases such as allergies, asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder.
