The hospital at Marsa Matrouh has 59 ICU beds, and 59 artificial respiration units - File photo
CAIRO - 15 February 2020: The first person tested positive for coronavirus (2019-nCoV) in Egypt was quarantined in the Mediterranean city of Marsa Matrouh, northern Egypt.
The Egyptian Ministry of Health announced that a Chinese passenger, 33 years old, was tested positive for the disease. The infected case was transported from Cairo to Central al-Nagila Hospital in Marsa Matrouh via a self-sterilizing ambulance. He was isolated in a separate room away from the hospital’s all departments.
A medical source at the hospital spoke on condition of anonymity as he was not authorized to brief the media that the infected person could catch the virus as he was in an infected lady in China.
Egyptian Minister of Health Hala Zayed told al-Hikaya T.V. Show on Friday that the infected person could be cured from the disease, noting that his current condition is not contagious as the disease symptoms did not appear yet.
She added that his family and all 14 people he dealt with were tested negative for the disease.
The Ministry has taken strict measures against those who were in direct contact with the infected person, according to the ministry’s statement on Friday evening. They were isolated in their locations of residence as a precautionary measure for a period of 14 days, the ministry stated.
Since February 3, 2020, Marsa Matrouh hospital was announced a quarantine for possible cases could be infected with the virus. Since then, a total of 362 Egyptians who returned from the Chinese city of Wuhan, the source of the virus, have been quarantined there. Minister Hala Zayed confirmed that all quarantined Egyptians are negative for the virus.
Representative of the World Health Organization in Egypt, John Gabor praised Egypt’s transparency dealing with the situation, and “its keenness to inform WHO of the case as soon as it was discovered.
John stressed that Egypt was one of the first countries to develop a good preventive plan against Coronavirus, as it was provided with an accurate detectors to discover any case infected with the new emerging virus.
According to the WHO latest data as of Friday, a total of 49, 053 cases were confirmed positive for the virus globally since its outbreak in late January 2020. Meanwhile, the death toll from the virus reached 1381 persons.
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