SCHISTOSOMIASIS CONTROL

closed

The project will support the development of a sustainable national program to control schistosomiasis, Egypt's most important parasitic disease. The project has three specific objectives: (i) to extend the National Schistosomiasis Control Programme to five governorates in the Eastern and Western regions of the Nile Delta; (ii) to modernize and rehabilitate the existing program in Middle and Upper Egypt, and the Suez Canal area in order to increase its efficiency and effectiveness; and (iii) to support operational research and strengthen management of the Ministry of Health's Endemic Diseases Control Department in order to further increase operating efficiency and to control operating costs. The credit will finance three catagories of expenditure: (i) laboratory equipment, vehicles, drugs, molluscicides, consulting services and training for the governorates being added to the national program; (ii) replacement of obsolete and depreciated laboratory equipment and vehicles; retraining of staff; and purchase of drugs and pesticides for governorates included earlier in the national program; and (iii) consultancy services, computers, vehicles and research funds to strengthen the central agency charged with planning and executing the program.