Public Health Law No. 89 of 1981.

This Law consisting of 106 articles divided in V Sections aims at providing for the enjoyment of citizens' rights to full physical, mental and social fitness. It states that health is a right for each citizen and the responsibility of the State to provide all means to promote health prevent and treat diseases. Main functions of the Ministry of Health are: establish and manage health facilities; control communicable diseases; provide school health, maternal, family and child health care and services (protection of vision and hearing, dental prevention, health education); raise the nutritional standard among population; provide for mental health service and public health laboratories; supply for drugs, vaccines, sera and other medical goods; establish controls and standards for health conditions; provide for the conveyance of corpses and death burials; provide for the safety of drinking water, govern the breeding of animals; and to observe the application of those rules, specifications and conditions. These items are presented in Section I. In addition to the enumeration of goals for the Ministry of Health s work, the Law also provides for the establishment of a Council of the Ministry of Health, which is entrusted with: health policy and planning and governing all the funds in connection with public health in the country; recommendations for the implementation of health policy; control and monitoring the implementation of health plans; directives to ensure the development of the health services and for raising the; formation of personnel in the health sector; and supervision of the work of the health boards in the governorates.
The V Sections are entitled as follows: General Objectives and Administrative Organs (I); Preventative medicine (II); Curative Health Centres (III); Administrative and Penal Provisions (IV); and Final provisions (V).