Egypt reported 1399 new coronavirus (COVID-19) cases, and 46 new deaths on Monday, raising the country’s total number of confirmed cases to 26,384 cases, and the total number of fatalities to 1005 deaths. A total of 6297 cases recovered and have been discharged from quarantine facilities at hospitals.
The first effective vaccine to treat the coronavirus (COVID-19) will be available in Egypt in September, according to Dr Mohamed Awad Tag El-Din, Adviser to the President on Health and Prevention.
Talking via telephone to the Al-Hadath television channel on Sunday evening, Tag El-Din said that a foreign company with a branch in Egypt will produce locally a quantity of the vaccine in September. The company is projecting that it will produce about 2bn doses by 2021.
Tag El-Din added that the Egyptian authorities are monitoring local and global developments in the pandemic. He said that “every step or move that takes place in the country is taken according to a balance between the health of the country and health of the economy”.
He explained that a clinical trial on Hydroxychloroquine, the anti-malarial drug that is part of Egypt’s coronavirus treatment protocol, was conducted on 15,000 patients. He noted that the drug has shown positive outcomes for the patients.
The state has provided mobile medical units across Egypt, particularly in the country’s remoter areas which have little to no access to medical services, to treat those infected with the virus. Tag El-Din added that the mobile medical units were put into effect, due to the high number of infections nationwide.
Tag El-Din added that private hospitals cannot financially pressure citizens, and that it is unethical to take advantage of the patients’ need for treatment. He pointed out that private hospitals only provide a small share of the health services for coronavirus patients, compared to university and Ministry of Health-affiliated hospitals. He also said that some university hospitals provide health services to some institutions at reasonable prices that may be less than the real cost of service.
