El-Amarna, Egypt; village children collecting water

El-Amarna; village children collecting water from the Nile in plastic cans, January 1990. The small boy on the far right, wearing a brown jellaba, has a cleft lip which will probably not be repaired. In 1990, Egypt had a high number of trained medical professionals compared with most middle-income countries. There were more than 73,300 doctors (roughly one per 715 inhabitants) and about 70,000 certified nurses. However, fewer than 30% of all doctors and scarcely 10% of nurses served in villages. This meant that public health clinics generally provided an inadequate service coupled with the lack of modern equipment.