Egyptians arriving from abroad to undergo home quarantine

CAIRO – 4 June 2020: Cairo International Airport has applied a national recommendation to cancel quarantine for Egyptians coming from abroad, as a precautionary measure to avoid the spread of the novel coronavirus, and apply home isolation instead, a source at the airport said.

The decision has been applied on 450 stranded Egyptians who came recently from Beirut on three exceptional flights. The arrivals have been tested for coronavirus.

Suspected coronavirus patients among passengers will be immediately isolated inside hospitals, the source added.

Although Egypt has suspended flights due to the coronavirus crisis, the state’s flag carrier EgyptAir has operated several exceptional flights to many countries to bring the stranded nationals abroad.

On April 22nd, President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi noted that around 3,500 Egyptians are stranded abroad over coronavirus, affirming that authorities are committed to bringing them back despite "hard circumstances".

Egypt reported 1,079 new coronavirus, COVID-19 cases, Wednesday, raising the total number of confirmed cases since the outbreak in Egypt to 28,615.

Spokesman for the Health Ministry Khaled Megahed said in the daily briefing that 36 patients have died from the virus over the past 24 hours, raising the death toll to 1,088.

As many as 523 patients were discharged from isolation hospitals after receiving necessary medical care, taking the number of recovered cases to 7,350 so far, the spokesman said.

The number of coronavirus patients who had now been retested for the virus and received negative results has reached 8,371, he added.