The Egyptian Doctors Syndicate has referred four doctors to a syndicate disciplinary committee on accusations of promoting an apparent hepatitis-treatment device that has not been scientifically verified.

On its official website, the syndicate accused the four doctors who promoted the device of being responsible for "harming millions of Egyptian citizens who waited for treatment by the named device."   

In 2014, the Egyptian military announced at a press conference that its engineering department had developed a breakthrough device that could diagnosis and treat HIV and hepatitis C.

Major-General Ibrahim Abdel-Atti, a physician and the man behind the device, said its HIV and hepatitis C treatments had a 100 percent success rate. The device was supposed to be deployed publicly in Egypt by June 2014, according to armed forces, but such treatments have yet to materialise.

The device was widely criticised at the time for being scientifically unfounded. Essam Heggy, scientific advisor to then-president Adly Mansour, argued that the device appeared to have no clear scientific basis.

Egypt has one of the highest hepatitis C rates in the world. The number of patients reached 8 million in 2008, according to health ministry figures, or nearly 10 percent of the population. In some parts of Upper Egypt and the Nile Delta infection rates reach 20 percent.