Coronavirus recoveries in Egypt surpass 32,000 – health ministry

By Amwal Al Ghad English On Jul 26, 2020

coronavirus cases Egypt — Two citizens seen helping each other to wear face masks to protect against contracting a coronavirus infection (Photo Credit: Getty Images)

933 coronavirus patients have fully recovered and left isolation hospitals, bringing the total number of recoveries to 32,903 since the detection of the first case on 14 February, according to a health ministry statement on Saturday.

Health ministry spokesman Khaled Megahed said in the statement the total number of COVID-19 deaths has reached 4,558 nationwide, after registering 40 deaths during the past 24 hours.

The ministry reported 511 new coronavirus infections on Saturday, which brings the total number of confirmed cases nationwide to 91,583.

Egypt has been seeing a significant drop in detected coronavirus cases, registering daily cases lower than 1,000 for the 17th consecutive day.

Despite the reopening of the country late month, the daily figure has stabilised, with the country’s record of daily coronavirus cases — 1,774 infections recorded on 19 June — kept unbroken to date

Earlier today, Health Minister Hala Zayed visited the ministry’s national vaccination centre, VACSERA, to follow up on its readiness to start manufacturing a potential coronavirus vaccine developed by Beijing.

According to a separate statement, Zayed inspected the efficiency of VACSERA’s infrastructure and equipment.

Last week, during Zayed’s meeting with Chinese Ambassador Liao Liqiang, the minister announced that Egypt has been selected by China to serve as a future hub for manufacturing its coronavirus vaccine in Africa.

The meeting discussed means of cooperation between VACSERA and a Chinese company carrying out trials to develop the vaccine to pave the way for manufacturing it in Egypt once it is proven effective, the ministry said in a statement on Monday.

Seven months into the COVID-19 pandemic, scientists and drug-makers around the world are testing existing antiviral drugs and working to come up with drugs that may prove effective against the virus to curb its spread until a vaccine is found.

Earlier this month, Egypt said it was working on developing four local coronavirus vaccines that have been registered by the World Health Organisation among a list of candidate vaccines in global pre-clinical evaluation.

The four vaccines, which have not yet been approved for human clinical trials, include DNA plasmid, inactivated-whole virus, influenza A H1N1 vector, and protein subunit vaccines.