Egypt's Ministry of Health and Population announced on Tuesday that the number of visitors to the online platform of the General Secretariat for Mental Health and Addiction Treatment, since its launch on 16 March 2022, has reached 66,000 visitors. This comes within the framework of the latest attention given by the state to psychological support services, psychological counselling and addiction treatment, and working to educate citizens on how to obtain medical consultations for mental health, through the electronic platform. Hossam Abdel Ghaffar, the official spokesperson for the Ministry of Health and Population, added that the number of electronic questionnaires that were conducted by users exceeded 18,000 questionnaires, while the number of "virtual" treatment sessions that were provided to visitors to the platform reached more than 4,200 sessions. For her part, Menen Abdel-Maksoud, the Secretary-General of the Secretariat of Mental Health and Addiction Treatment, said that the percentage of visitors to the platform was 57% of females, compared to 43% of males, stressing that the visitors to the platform included 18% of married people and 82% of unmarried. Abdel Maqsoud indicated that most of the age groups that used the platform ranged from 15 to 25 years, while the percentage of non-working users reached 60% compared to 40% of workers at the level of the governorates of the republic. She emphasized that the electronic platform for mental health and addiction treatment aims to provide free mental health and addiction treatment services for all age groups, Egyptians and non-Egyptians residing in Egypt, which is the first of its kind in the Eastern Mediterranean region, calling on all citizens to visit the platform and benefit from the various services provided by the General Secretariat for Mental Health and Addiction Treatment via the following link: https://nmhp.mohp.gov.eg/mental/web/ar. Abdel Maqsoud further added that the General Secretariat for Mental Health and Addiction Treatment formed a committee to discuss mechanisms for establishing policies for electronic mental health services. It shall include increasing the number of therapists in virtual psychiatric clinics, means of attracting the public to psychological services "remotely" and proposing regulatory laws to host the electronic national platform for mental health and mechanisms for the use of the service by therapists and the public abroad, the possibility of integrating virtual psychological services within the health insurance system, and the importance of laws regulating electronic drug prescriptions.
