[Modern Egypt and the history of microbiology. The campaign of Bonaparte]. / Egypte moderne et histoire de la microbiologie: De i'expédition de Bonaparte à nos jours.

ABSTRACT

The history of microbiology and parasitology in Egypt started with Bonaparte's campaign and the contemporary clinical reports from the physicians of the "Armee d'Orient" (1798-1903). Later, basic discoveries in parasitology and bacteriology have been the facts of German scientists such as Theodor Bilharz, Robert Koch and Arthur Looss. At the beginning of the First World War German physicians were evicted from Cairo and British parasitologists took over as Robert Leiper succeeded in clarifying the life cycle of schistosomiasis. Virology studies on poliomyelitis in Egypt started in 1942-1943 but British virologists were quickly supplanted by the Americans as the U.S. NAMRU-3 laboratory opened in Cairo in the 50s. Many basic contributions to the epidemiology of the viral diseases in the Nile valley have been established during the past forty years, concerning enteroviruses, mosquito and tick-borne arboviruses as well as hepatitis C virus.