MOH News

The center provides all community members including children, adults and the elderly with a host of specialties, including: maternal and child health, immunizations, family medicine, communicable and non-communicable diseases, oral and dental health, environmental health, in addition to pharmacy and emergency services. The center has obtained accreditation of the Saudi Central Board for Accreditation of Healthcare Institutions (CBAHI), after the center's compliance with the patients' safety and quality accreditation standards. The accreditation is a qualitative shift for the province's health sector.

On the other hand, the Ministry of Health (MOH) has recently started implementing the second phase of the National Program for Hepatitis C Virus (HCV) Detection and Treatment. As well, MOH has launched an awareness campaign entitled (Give Your Hand), which features several awareness materials to be posted on social media. “During the past two years, MOH has provided a number of quality drugs to treat HCV, while giving priority to sophisticated cases or those transmitting infections to other. The introduction of locally produced world-class drugs has help expand the scope of treatment in an unprecedented way; thus, removing priority barriers. In addition, the Program trains both doctors and coordinators, and provides lab and radiology test, as well as the logistic services needed for its implementation.

It is noteworthy that hepatitis C virus (HCV) causes both acute and chronic infection. Acute HCV infection is usually asymptomatic. About 15–30% of infected persons spontaneously clear the virus. The remaining will develop chronic HCV infection, which may lead to cirrhosis or liver cancer in some cases. HCV can be cured using new direct-acting antiviral medicines recently made available, which have proven effective with more than 95% recovery percentage. However, there is no vaccine for hepatitis C.