Egypt approves clinical trials for COVID-19 drugs: WHO official

CAIRO – 30 March 2020: Egypt approved proposals to conduct clinical trials, in a bid to help develop a treatment for coronavirus (COVID-19), said Yvan Hutin, director for communicable diseases in the World Health Organization’s regional office.

This comes as the virus has so far killed around 35,000 people worldwide, according to Worldometers.

In an online press conference on Monday, Hutin urged Egypt to follow the scenario of taking the required precautionary measures, and monitoring those who were in contact with the infected cases and putting them in quarantine.

He warned against failure to implement the necessary procedures in a timely manner, saying that it would worsen the situation and cause the health system to collapse.

Hutin has highlighted three important messages during the conference, including the need to protect oneself and others from being infected with the deadly virus, obtaining awareness information from official sources and seeking medical care in the event of being infected before having complications.

John Jabbour, the WHO representative in Egypt, also urged the Egyptian society and government to act responsibly, in order to avoid a coronavirus outbreak similar to Italy.

Egypt’s preparedness with a number of scenarios to face the pandemic can protect the African country from a hard scenario, he added.

The Egyptian Ministry of Health recorded Sunday 33 new cases of COVID-19 and 4 deaths of the viral virus according to a statement. All the new cases are Egyptians who have contracted the virus from cases that were previously recorded.

The total number of the cases recorded in Egypt is 609, 132 of them recovered and left the quarantine hospital, and 40 died.