Egypt’s Ministry of Health and Population announced on Sunday that since April, cases of Covid-19 in Egypt began to decrease significantly, reaching the lowest rates compared to previous years and that there have been no deaths since the last recorded case on 16 March 2023 until now.
Hossam Abdel Ghaffar, the official spokesperson for the Ministry of Health and Population, explained that all the currently circulating mutants belong to the mutated Omicron and do not cause severe disease.
Abdel Ghaffar indicated that since the World Health Organization declared the end of the health emergency for COVID-19 on 5 May 2023, the virus has become endemic in all countries of the world and is treated like other acute respiratory diseases. He added that the current dominant mutant in the world is the Omicron mutant, which is rapidly spreading, but it is less severe and less dangerous than other mutants.
He also explained that the WHO is currently monitoring several variants of the Covid-19 virus, including 3 variants classified as interesting (XBB.1.16, XBB.1.5, EG.5), and six other variants classified as under surveillance.
Abdel Ghaffar said that globally, XBB.1.16 remains the most prevalent variant, reported from a total of 101 countries since its emergence and its prevalence is 25.2% among all other variants during Epidemic Week 29 from 17 to 23 July 2023. The XBB.1.5 variant was reported from 121 countries worldwide, with a prevalence of 12.7% over the same time period.
Regarding the mutant (EG.5), Abdel Ghaffar said that it is one of the subspecies of the XBB 1.9.2 mutant (a mixture of subspecies of the Omicron mutant), indicating that as of 7 August 7,354 samples of the EG.5 mutant were reported out of 51 countries, and its global prevalence rate reached 17.4% among all other variants during the 29th epidemiological week, from 17 to 23 July 2023. China hosts the biggest number of cases.
