Ragaa El Gedawy Undergoes Plasma Therapy

Veteran Egyptian actress Ragaa El-Gedawy, whose career has spanned for over six decades, is currently receiving treatment for Coronavirus at the Abu Khalifa Isolation Hospital in Ismailia.

The 81-year-old actress has been transferred on June 2 into the intensive care unit (ICU), after the deterioration of her health condition.

She was transferred immediately to the ICU after she felt shortness of breath, headache, and circulatory collapse in the early hours of the morning.

A medical source at the Abu Khalifa Isolation Hospital revealed the following day that El-Gedawy’s health condition has improved.

The source stated that the 81-year-old actress is in good condition, pointing out that her temperature dropped to 37 degrees, as well as her oxygen level in the blood has increased, and her pulse pressure has improved.

The source added that despite the improvement of her condition, she is still on the “CPAP machine”, and if her condition becomes much better than this, she will return to a regular room, and leave the intensive care.

The source emphasized that a huge factor that affected her health, is the deterioration of her mental health, which deteriorated due to rumors that had spread widely on social media about her death, which caused her to stress and increased her anger.

“The psychological factor is very important for the health condition of a coronavirus patient,” the source noted.

Rumors circulated on the internet the same day that claimed that the 81-year-old actress had passed away.

Amira Mokhtar, the daughter of El-Gedawy, took to Facebook to deny the circulating rumors about her mother’s death, for the second time.

“My mother is indeed in the ICU, but she did not lose consciousness. I am saying this for the second time to pray for her recovery, hers, and every patient.” Mokhtar wrote on Facebook.

Ragaa El Gedawy Undergoes Plasma Therapy

The medical staff supervising the treatment of the veteran actress announced that she and another patient in a critical condition got injected with two doses of plasma.

El-Gedawy's condition stabilized after receiving the doses, however, she is still on the CPAP machine.

The veteran actress has been in isolation for over 11 days. She was infected with the novel coronavirus, on the 27th of Ramadan, after finished filming TV series “Leabah El Nesian” (Oblivion Game), which achieved great success during its premiere in Ramadan, and entered the isolation on the night of Eid Al-Fitr.

Tributes poured in on social media, as soon as the news circulated, wishing the star a safe and healthy recovery.

Egypt's Health Minister Hala Zayed announced last the success of the experiment of injecting blood plasma from recovered coronavirus into the positive cases.

Zayed added that the trial showed promising initial results with critical COVID-19 cases at the Health Ministry’s hospitals, noting the experiment reduced the patients’ need for ventilators and increased the number of recovered cases.

There are five centers nationwide in Agouza, Giza, Alexandria, Luxor, Tanta, and El Minya.

The novel coronavirus was first reported in Wuhan, China, and has infected more than one million people and killed over 234,139 worldwide. It also hit several celebrities and top political figures around the world.

The virus is a new member of the Coronaviruses group, which was never identified in humans. The viruses’ family also includes Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS-CoV), and Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS-CoV), which cause illness ranging from the common cold to more severe diseases.

Coronaviruses are zoonotic, meaning they are transmitted between animals and people. Humans and animals such as mammals and birds can be affected by the disease. The name coronavirus is derived from the Latin corona, meaning “crown” or “halo”.

On February 11, the World Health Organization (WHO) announced the official name for the disease caused by the new coronavirus is Covid-19, taken from the words “corona”, “virus” and “disease”.

In December 2019, an outbreak was reported in Wuhan, China. On 31 December 2019, the outbreak was traced to a novel strain of coronavirus, which was given the interim name 2019-nCoV by the World Health Organization (WHO), it was later renamed SARS-CoV-2 by the International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses.

On March 11, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared coronavirus a global pandemic as the new virus has rapidly spread to more than 800,000 people from Asia to the Middle East, Europe, and the United States.

Transmission of viruses between humans happens when someone comes into contact with an infected person’s secretions, such as droplets in a cough.

Coronavirus can also be transmitted by coming into contact with something an infected person has touched and then touching your mouth, nose, or eyes.

It is known that older people appear to be more vulnerable to the effects of the emerging virus.

The virus caused complete paralysis in all activities and events with large gatherings worldwide due to concerns over the spread of the virus.

People across the globe partake in self-isolation for 14 days as an effective precautionary measure to protect those around them and themselves from contracting COVID-19.