Egypt, one of the world's 15 most populous nations, has been certified malaria-free after a 'pharaonic' effort that began 100 years ago.

Killing nearly 600,000 people every year, almost all of whom dwell in Africa, the malarial transmission chain has been interrupted for three years in a row, proving that the Egyptian health authorities can ensure it remains a negligent public health burden.

"Malaria is as old as Egyptian civilization itself, but the disease that plagued pharaohs now belongs to its history," said WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, to mark the occasion.

The WHO praised "the Egyptian government and people" for their efforts to "end a disease that has been present in the country since ancient times," and added that Egypt and her 114 million inhabitants were now the second country declared malaria-free in the WHO's Eastern Mediterranean region.

Malaria has been traced as far back as 4,000 BCE in Egypt, with genetic evidence of the disease found in Tutankhamun and other ancient Egyptian mummies. With most of Egypt's population living along the banks of the Nile River, malaria prevalence has been recorded as high as 40%.

The statement detailed how Egyptian health advocates first took action to combat the spread of malaria in 1923 when the government prevented agricultural cultivation near settlements.

Only 44 countries in the tropical belts where malaria spreads have been declared malaria-free since the creation of the WHO. Near-neighbors UAE, and far neighbors Morocco, have also won the designation.

"Receiving the malaria elimination certificate today is not the end of the journey but the beginning of a new phase," said Egypt's Health Minister Khaled Abdel Ghaffar.

"We must now work tirelessly and vigilantly to sustain our achievement through maintaining the highest standards for surveillance, diagnosis, and treatment."

Malaria diagnosis and treatment are provided free of charge to the entire population in Egypt regardless of legal status, and health professionals are trained nationwide to detect and screen for malaria cases including at borders. Egypt's strong cross-border partnership with neighboring countries, including Sudan, has been instrumental in preventing the re-establishment of local malaria transmission.

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He was as close as you'll ever get to a Bond villain. He set up a charity to pay for kids' education up through college. After a couple decades of that, he had thousands of educated followers with deep personality loyalty to him. He used them to make up the "Ergenekon" conspiracy theory, claiming that the military was plotting all kinds of evil things. Using forged evidence and ties to the media he got the public to believe in this bullshit and he got thousands of military officers arrested or fired. The military had always been the dominant force in Turkey but he managed to cut their balls off within a few years.

He had been closely allied with Erdogan during this. But once he was done the military he started the same kind of campaign to undermine him. Erdogan wasn't a tard and fought back, eventually forcing him to flee to the United States. For some reason the tards in our government decided to let him have asylum here, because I guess this is the kind of conflict we want to get caught up in. From his base in rural Pennsylvania he plotted the failed coup attempt. Since then Erdogan has used him like Goldstein in 1984. We always have to be on guard for Gulenists. They could be anywhere! This is partly true because his followers had infiltrated every institution they could, but Erdogan's supporters have used it as an excuse to fire anyone they want to, up to maybe 100,000 people now. We know most of them must be innocent because there's no way Gulen had that many people in his organization.

Maybe with him out of the picture tensions between Turkey and the US will cool a little bit. I'm not hoping for much since Erdogan just doesn't like us, but at least he doesn't have a legitimate grievance against us anymore.