Egypt's Minister of Health and Population Khaled Abdel Ghaffar met with the representative of the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) in Egypt, Jeremy Hopkins, and his accompanying delegation to discuss cooperation, the ministry said in a statement on Monday. During the meeting, the minister praised the role of the UNICEF in Egypt and its efforts to support the services provided by the ministry, praising the fruitful cooperation between the two sides during the past period in programmes aiming to promote maternal and child health in Egypt. Furthermore, the statement said that the minister discussed cooperation with UNICEF in technical support to develop policies, strategies, and implementation plans for children's health programmes that are provided through primary care facilities. The meeting also dealt with ways of cooperation to implement the ministry's strategy within the Decent Life presidential initiative, as well as the application of the comprehensive health insurance system by providing technical and technological support for plans to develop medical facilities, along with implementing training programmes for human cadres to ensure the provision of and efficiency of medical services. Additionally, the two sides discussed cooperation in supporting the national strategy for food and nutrition, as well as supporting programmes to improve health indicators for children. The minister also stressed the importance of cooperation with UNICEF in the field of school feeding and benefiting from the results of the presidential initiative for early detection and treatment of obesity diseases and anaemia and dwarfism for school students. Furthermore, Abdel Ghaffar stressed the need to intensify health awareness campaigns aiming to familiarise families with the various nutrients that should be included in their children's meals and ways to prevent malnutrition, which contributes to instilling the foundations of a healthy lifestyle among all segments of society, in addition to intensifying training programmes for workers in primary health care units and centres to raise awareness of healthy nutrition. Finally, the meeting tackled the continuation of cooperation with UNICEF in providing basic vaccinations for children within the vaccination schedules approved by the Ministry of Health and Population, praising the organisation's efforts to support polio vaccination campaigns.
