Suspected COVID-19 cases in Egypt test negative; country is safe: cabinet

Health Minister reiterates from Beijing that no cases are confirmed in Egypt, except a foreigner

Egypt's cabinet announced on Tuesday that the five foreigners suspected for COVID-19 tested negatives after undergoing further examination in Imbaba Fever Hospital.
According to a statement from the cabinet, Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly is following the latest updates of the pandemic.
Minister of Health Hala Zayed, who is currently in China, said in a statement that 1,447 people were checked for the COVID-19 in Egypt and only two cases of foreigners were found positive.
Zayed explained in a press conference at the Egyptian embassy in China that one of the two suspected cases has left hospital after 14 days in quarantine as his medical tests came negative for several times.
The other case, announced on Sunday, was a foreigner also and was put in quarantine. All people communicating with him were checked and he is now receiving the needed medical treatment.
The minister reiterated that no COVID-19 cases were found in any governorate except the two mentioned cases. She stressed that Egypt is dealing with the issue with transparency and according to the international health instructions, and in coordination with the World Health Organization (WHO).
On the other hand, Zayed praised the measures taken by Chinese authorities to combat the pandemic.
The total number of confirmed cases of this COVID-19 globally reached 92,220 cases, including 80,151 cases in China, while the death toll reached 3,129 deaths so far, 2,835 of them in China. However, 48,175 people of those infected have recovered worldwide.
WHO had increased the risk assessment of the outbreak to “very high” in China and the rest of the world.
The main hotspots of the pandemic until mid-Tuesday are; South Korea 5,186 confirmed cases, Iran 2,336 cases, Italy 2,036 cases, and Japan 274 cases.
In the Middle East, the Gulf region reported 56 cases in Kuwait, 49 in Bahrain, 26 in Iraq, 21 in the United Arab Emirates, seven in Qatar, six in Oman, and one in Saudi Arabia.
Israel has also reported 12 cases of COVID-19, while Lebanon reported 13.
Despite Egypt is quite safe till now according to WHO reports, health authorities in the Santa Clara County in California, US reported three new cases of COVID-19; two of them are a husband, and a wife who traveled recently to Egypt.
French health authorities reported 47 new cases of the COVID-19, of them 11 were in a voyage in Egypt recently.
The latest cases reported in the US and France raises the number of infected cases that returned from Egypt recently to 16, including China, US, France, Canada, and Taiwan, raising concerns about possible unrecorded spread of the virus in the country.