Japanese

On April 29, 2026, President Mitsuo Ochi of Hiroshima University(HU) visited the Ministry of Health and Population in Cairo, Arab Republic of Egypt, and paid a courtesy visit to H.E. Khaled Abdel Ghaffar, Minister of Health and Population. Executive Vice President for Global Initiatives Shinji Kaneko also attended the meeting.

Minister Abdel Ghaffar had previously attended the meeting between President Ochi and President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi at TICAD7(the Seventh Tokyo International Conference on African Development), held in Yokohama in August 2019, in his capacity at the time as Minister of Higher Education and Scientific Research. During this courtesy visit, both parties expressed their pleasure at meeting again after several years and fondly reflected on the history of exchanges between HU and Egypt.

The meeting continued with a broad exchange of views on potential cooperation between Japan and Egypt in the fields of healthcare and public health. Minister Abdel Ghaffar explained the importance of strengthening Egypt’s healthcare system and developing highly skilled medical professionals, while expressing strong expectations for Japanese expertise in the medical and educational sectors. He also expressed strong interest in collaboration with Japanese universities for the development and advancement of university hospitals and newly planned hospitals in Egypt, and conveyed his expectations for human resource development through the dispatch of Egyptian physicians to Hiroshima University Hospital.

In response, President Ochi introduced HU’s achievements in education and research in the fields of medicine and public health that the University has cultivated over the years. He also expressed HU’s intention to actively promote future collaboration with Egypt in areas such as the development of medical professionals and the management of university hospitals.

Furthermore, both sides agreed to continue discussions on the possibilities for collaboration in medical human resource development, joint research, and inter-university cooperation in the healthcare field. It is expected that cooperation between Japan and Egypt in the fields of healthcare and public health will continue to develop further in the future.