People with mental disorders are at increased risk for several physical diseases and have a higher mortality for natural causes than the general population. Their access to physical health care is reduced and the quality of the physical care they receive is worse compared to the general population.
If we are really concerned about the quality of life of our patients and the protection of their civil rights,  we cannot ignore that physical health is a crucial dimension of quality of life in these persons,
and that access to a physical health care of the same quality as that available to the rest of the population is a basic right of these persons as human beings and as citizens.

   This Regional Meeting will review the research evidence about the comorbidity between mental disorders and physical diseases, the factors which contribute to generate this comorbidity, and what can be done to address the problem.
  
    The city of Cairo, which hosted an excellent World Congress of Psychiatry in the year 2005, will be the extremely attractive venue of the Regional Meeting, whose speakers will include many of the most renowned international experts in the field.

              I look forward to meeting you in Cairo.

   One of the main caveats of our current psychiatric classifications is the high prevalence of co-occurrence of psychiatric disorders because of the overlap of symptoms and blurring of delineation of disorders. What is more alarming is the high co-morbidity between physical and mental disorders. Recent studies revealed that the prevalence of cardiovascular,
 cerebrovascular, diabetes, hyperlipidaemia, emphysema, etc… are commoner in mental
 patients than in the general population. Our patients may have high threshold for pain and so many painful physical disorders are misdiagnosed and under diagnosed. The life span and quality of life of our mental patents are less than the general population. Clinical training and postgraduate curricula should have an emphasis on the co-morbid medical conditions
 with psychiatric disorders so that the psychiatrist should have proper access for diagnosis and management of their medical disorders. It is a good opportunity to highlight this co-morbidity in the next WPA regional meeting in Cairo where ancient Egyptians believed that the site of all mental illness was in the heart as revealed in Eber's papyrus and at treatment was physical rather than mystical.

You are welcome to Cairo to discuss what was realized 6000 years ago of the physical and mental co-morbidity.

 Prof. Ahmed Okasha
  

Honorary President of WPA Regional Meeting - Cairo
 President Egyptian Psychiatric Association
 President Arab Federation of Psychiatrists
 Past President World Psychiatric Association