CAIRO, April 5 (Xinhua) -- Egypt's health ministry announced on Tuesday adding more than 15 million Egyptians to the comprehensive health insurance system, which now covers 69 percent of the Egyptian population of 102 million.
Farmers, taxi drivers, and seasonal workers, including fishermen, miners, quarries, contracting, transportation and shipping workers, were among the newly added people, said Khaled Abdel Ghaffar, Egypt's minister of higher education and scientific research and acting minister of health and population.
The move was part of Egypt's efforts to improve its citizens' quality of life and standard of living by bringing all Egyptians under the umbrella of the social and health insurance system and realize Egypt's Vision 2030, the minister said.
In 2018, Egypt launched a six-phase healthcare program that aims to cover all provinces by 2027 at a cost of 210 billion Egyptian pounds (11.49 billion U.S. dollars).
The country's public treasury will cover one-fourth of the program's estimated costs, with public shares in the stock market covering half of the expenditures, while the rest of funding comes from other sources, the Egyptian finance ministry announced earlier. ■
