REUSABLE needles used for a national treatment campaign in Egypt decades ago are the cause of the high number of liver disease cases in the country today, researchers said. hundreds of thousands of Egyptians received injections for a common but serious disease called schistosomiasis, which is caused by a parasite in the blood, from the 1950s to the 1980s. Researchers from the University of Maryland in the United States said the reusable needles were not properly sterilised and led to the spread of hepatitis C, which currently affects an estimated 15% of Egyptians.