COVID-19 daily briefing: Egypt records 1,261 new cases, 17 deaths

CAIRO - 4 March 2022: The Health Ministry said 1,261 new coronavirus cases were detected on Thursday, upping the total number of confirmed infections since the outbreak in the country began to 487,642.

This is the lowest daily coronavirus count recorded by the country since 18 January amid a significant drop in cases over the past days.

In a statement, Spokesman for the Health Ministry Hossam Abdel Ghaffar said 17 patients have died from the virus over the past 24 hours, raising the death toll to 24,149.

As many as 1,008 patients were discharged from isolation hospitals after receiving necessary medical care, taking the number of recovered cases to 417,479 so far, the spokesman said.

Egypt has so far administered 40,210,422 first coronavirus vaccine shots, 30,242,662 second shots, and 1,131,879 booster shots.

On Tuesday, Egypt’s Acting Health Minister Khaled Abdel Ghaffar held a press conference to announce the start of clinical trials for the Egyptian vaccine EgyVacc.

This is the second locally made vaccine after CoviVacc, whose clinical trials started in November.