Can you hear Egypt?
According to the Egyptian Environment Affairs Agency (EEAA), noise pollution ranks second in a complaint survey of 2006. Egypt often has outdated as well as a small quantity of data and research about hearing loss in Egypt.
360 million people worldwide have moderate to profound hearing loss according to the World Health Organisation (WHO). Of Egypt’s already staggering population of 91 million, 5.5% suffer from some sort of hearing loss.
But what is Egypt doing in the prevention of hearing loss? Esma3ny meaning ‘hear me’ is a community awareness initiative that was created in 2015. That same year, saw Egypt’s first specialized rehab centre for the hearing impaired. Dr. Hossam Abdel Ghaffar, Head Of Department Of Otorhinolaryngology in the Faculty Of Medicine at Helwan University, said the biggest cause of hearing loss in Egyptians comes from the marriage of close relatives. This along with the above international average noise pollution creates a low quality of life.
If you’ve ever been to Cairo, you have probably heard the car, bus, motorbike and every type of transportation horns. They are a huge contributor to noise pollution in Egypt’s capital city. The state and misuse of vehicles thus leads to rattling exhausts and squeaking brakes.
Despite the efforts to spread the population of Cairo further east and west with new housing developments. The degraded quality is of life still remains as noise can not only cause issues for people with hearing problems but can cause hearing problems, Abel Ghaffar.
To understand what it is like to live with hearing loss in Cairo, Amir Zaghloul spoke to Able To Aspire. Zaghloul came to Egypt 6 years ago, he shares that, despite the advancement in technology with his hearing aids, Egypt’s noise pollution still prevails to be a problem. “The hearing aid can cancel like a certain amount of noise around me but because there are so many noises, like car honking, and loud TV’s and so many communications going on and all that it’s really hard to cancel out most of the sound.”
Believe it or not Egypt has a law on noise limits, that was amended in 2009.
Written by Nadia Abu El Dahab.
360 million people worldwide have moderate to profound hearing loss according to the World Health Organisation (WHO). Of Egypt’s already staggering population of 91 million, 5.5% suffer from some sort of hearing loss.
But what is Egypt doing in the prevention of hearing loss? Esma3ny meaning ‘hear me’ is a community awareness initiative that was created in 2015. That same year, saw Egypt’s first specialized rehab centre for the hearing impaired. Dr. Hossam Abdel Ghaffar, Head Of Department Of Otorhinolaryngology in the Faculty Of Medicine at Helwan University, said the biggest cause of hearing loss in Egyptians comes from the marriage of close relatives. This along with the above international average noise pollution creates a low quality of life.
If you’ve ever been to Cairo, you have probably heard the car, bus, motorbike and every type of transportation horns. They are a huge contributor to noise pollution in Egypt’s capital city. The state and misuse of vehicles thus leads to rattling exhausts and squeaking brakes.
Despite the efforts to spread the population of Cairo further east and west with new housing developments. The degraded quality is of life still remains as noise can not only cause issues for people with hearing problems but can cause hearing problems, Abel Ghaffar.
To understand what it is like to live with hearing loss in Cairo, Amir Zaghloul spoke to Able To Aspire. Zaghloul came to Egypt 6 years ago, he shares that, despite the advancement in technology with his hearing aids, Egypt’s noise pollution still prevails to be a problem. “The hearing aid can cancel like a certain amount of noise around me but because there are so many noises, like car honking, and loud TV’s and so many communications going on and all that it’s really hard to cancel out most of the sound.”
Believe it or not Egypt has a law on noise limits, that was amended in 2009.
Written by Nadia Abu El Dahab.