With Minister Sallam, she inaugurated a new clinic, met with mothers at a women's club, visited the Ministry of Health's regional cancer centre and met with representatives of Egyptian organisations working in the field of health in Upper Egypt. Sallam also guided Shalala on a tour of Menoufiya province, visiting health and community facilities there and talking to villagers. In Cairo, Shalala met with representatives of US institutions working on health issues in Egypt, particularly focusing on joint efforts in the fields of women's and children's health. Secretary Shalala said that she was most impressed by the projects that she saw to bring better health care to all Egyptians. But as we all know, health also has a profound effect on the economic well-being of a nation.
Workers are more productive when they lose less time to illness, disability and premature death.
And investors are more confident about bringing their resources to a nation with a sound workforce. Secretary Shalala pointed out areas in which the US and Egypt share the same concerns and in which, she believes, a lot of work still has to be done. She gave smoking and upper respiratory diseases as an example. Shalala also focused on the need to shift the emphasis from the curative to the preventive part of the health system. We, too, can no longer afford our high-tech medicine that is coming out, unless we reduce the number of people that need it.