Supervisor Elham AbolFateh
Editor in Chief Mohamed Wadie

Health Min. Reviews "Coronavirus" Latest Global Updates


Wed 11 Mar 2020 | 03:10 PM
NaDa Mustafa

Egypt’s Prime Minister (PM) Moustafa Madbouli chaired cabinet weekly meeting on Wednesday to discuss a number of important local and global social, economic, and developmental issues.

During the meeting, Minister of Health and population Dr. Hala Zayed reviewed the latest developments regarding the novel “Coronavirus”, noting that the World Health Organization (WHO) announced statistics related to the global position of the virus. Worldwide, as of March 9, there have been 109,577 confirmed cases and 3,809 deaths in 104 countries. In China alone, there were 80,904 confirmed cases and 3,123 deaths.

Moreover, the WHO statement pointed out that three new countries (Bangladesh, Albania, and Paraguay) have reported cases of COVID-19 in the past 24 hours.

With regard to the overall situation of Coronavirus cases in Egypt until Tuesday, March 10, the Health Minister indicated that the total confirmed cases have reached 60 cases so far (8 cases were discovered directly and 52 cases through surveillance and investigation procedures).

In addition, she pointed out that 26 cases recovered, and only one of the total confirmed cases died.

Dr. Zayed tackled the current situation of the two isolation hospitals in Matrouh and  Ismailia Governorates, noting that the total number of beds in the two hospitals amounted to 163 beds, in addition to 64 intensive care beds and 50 industrial respirators.

The minister touched upon the measures taken by the central operations room for “Coronavirus”, which are dealing with all notifications and inquiries received about the virus.

She also discussed the measures taken to equip the isolation hospitals with all the necessary medical and treatment requirements to deal immediately with infected cases.

The minister announced that an awareness campaign has been launched on "Facebook" to protect the person and those around him against Coronavirus infection.

Regarding the policies and measures that have been taken to avoid infection with the novel coronavirus, Dr. Zayed referred to the precautionary measures at a personal level, as well as maintaining public hygiene in various places and all work sites.

Concerning the epidemiological situation among tourists, the minister indicated that a random sample survey was carried out for 20% of floating hotel guests, and 10% of fixed hotel guests in Luxor and Aswan, and the results proved negative for the virus.

In addition, the Higher Education and Scientific Research, Education, Technical Education, Transport and Civil Aviation ministers reviewed the exerted efforts at all levels to confront the "Coronavirus".