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Neglected tropical diseases (NTDs), the most common afflictions of the world’s poor, have been shown to exert important influences that extend beyond health. NTDs stifle economic development through their debilitating effects. They also stir up social stigma and cause severe psychological effects, especially for girls and women. There is an intimate link between NTDs and war or post-conflict situations, and, increasingly, with the recent emergence of Ebola and Zika, NTDs are further recognized as relevant to the global security agenda. We are still in the early stages of understanding the relationship between NTDs and such social forces, but one relationship seldom explored is the potential associations between NTDs and the arts and humanities. Possible illustrations of such a connection may be found in 20th century Egypt through the remarkable lives of Abdel Halim Hafez and Taha Hussein.

In this study the authors assessed gender differences in the relationships between self-rated health (SRH) and demographic factors, physical health, health service use, infections, a variety of symptoms and health conditions, and wider well-being features. A self-administered questionnaire was administered to 3,271 students at Assiut University, Egypt during 2009–2010. Multiple logistic regression was used (with excellent/very good SRH as dependent variable) to assess the variables that might explain the gender difference in SRH. Females had more symptoms, infectious diseases/illness periods, substantially lower quality of life, and more burdens, although their health awareness and satisfaction with social support were higher than males. The unadjusted odds ratio (OR) suggested that females were less likely than males to rate their SRH as excellent/very good [OR 0.56, 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.47–0.68]. Adjusting only for relevant physical health and health service use variables, the OR for excellent/very good SRH for females increased, but nevertheless still remained significantly lower than that of males. With further adjustment for physical health, health service use, and also for wider well-being variables, the gender difference in SRH became no longer statistically significant. Poorer physical health indicators and a lower level of wider well-being features explained the lower SRH among female Egyptian university students. Health promotion and prevention programs should consider these factors in attempting to address gender health disparities.

The hepatitis C pandemic has been systematically studied and characterized in North America and Europe, but this important public health problem has not received equivalent attention in other regions.The objective of this systematic review was to characterize hepatitis C virus (HCV) epidemiology in selected countries of Asia, Australia and Egypt, i.e. in a geographical area inhabited by over 40% of the global population.Data references were identified through indexed journals and non-indexed sources. In this work, 7770 articles were reviewed and 690 were selected based on their relevance.We estimated that 49.3-64.0 million adults in Asia, Australia and Egypt are anti-HCV positive. China alone has more HCV infections than all of Europe or the Americas. While most countries had prevalence rates from 1 to 2% we documented several with relatively high prevalence rates, including Egypt (15%), Pakistan (4.7%) and Taiwan (4.4%). Nosocomial infection, blood transfusion (before screening) and injection drug use were identified as common risk factors in the region. Genotype 1 was common in Australia, China, Taiwan and other countries in North Asia, while genotype 6 was found in Vietnam and other Southeast Asian countries. In India and Pakistan genotype 3 was predominant, while genotype 4 was found in Middle Eastern countries such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Syria.We recommend implementation of surveillance systems to guide effective public health policy that may lead to the eventual curtailment of the spread of this pandemic infection.