Today we inaugurated the first-ever WHO Collaborating Centre (CC) dedicated to steatotic liver disease – hosted by @imperialcollege, with the @EASLnews as its clinical and scientific partner. I was honoured to launch it with Prof. Khaled Abdel-Ghaffar, Egypt’s Minister of Health and Population, whose country played a leading role in the World Health Assembly (WHA) resolution on liver disease adopted in May. The need is urgent. According to the 2026 EASL– @TheLancet Commission report, cirrhosis and liver cancer cause an estimated 780 deaths every day across the @WHO European Region, around 1 every 2 minutes, and cost economies €55 billion a year. Globally, 1.5 billion people are living with steatotic liver disease. Co-directed by Prof @MarkThursz and Prof @penny_manousou, the CC will help countries assess the burden of steatotic liver disease, develop WHO-endorsed policy reports, produce prevention briefs and training tools, and turn the WHA resolution into national liver health plans.

In London, I joined Prof Khaled Abdel-Ghaffar, Egypt’s Minister of Health and Population, as well as our partners from @imperialcollege and @EASLnews, to agree concrete next steps to move steatotic liver disease (SLD) from World Health Assembly (WHA) recognition to practical action in countries. Next steps will include support for national SLD strategies, drawing on 🇪🇬 Egypt’s experience, a joint training programme for primary health care professionals on screening and early detection, and fellowship and research collaboration with Imperial College London. The meeting discussed a proposal to establish a tri-regional task force to strengthen coordination and support implementation across regions. We also agreed to work towards an international symposium in Egypt in November, bringing policymakers and experts from different countries and regions together to exchange experience and advance joint action on SLD. A follow-up coordination mechanism has been established and will meet within 30 days to review progress on the agreed actions. I thanked Minister Abdel-Ghaffar for his leadership in bringing SLD onto the global noncommunicable disease agenda through the WHA resolution adopted in May, and for joining us at the launch of the first-ever WHO Collaborating Centre dedicated to SLD at Imperial College London, with EASL as its clinical and scientific partner.