New one-pound coins with ‘Egypt’s Medical Staff’ slogan to be issued: Minister

CAIRO – 5 February 2021: In appreciation of the Egyptian medical staff’ tremendous efforts in saving lives of thousands of citizens amid the pandemic of coronavirus (COVID-19), Minister of Finance Mohamed Maait order to issue coins bears slogan of ‘Egypt’s Medical Staff,” according to a statement from the ministry on Friday.

 

The Egyptian Mint Authority will issue 10 million of 1-pound coins and five million of 50-piaster coins with a slogan of “Egypt’s Medical Staff,” the minister added.

 

An additional financial package was approved to the medical staff wages by raising the medical professions allowance at a total cost of LE 2.25 billion for about 600,000 doctors and nursing staff in the health sector, the minister said.

 

The Coordination of Youth Parties and Politicians thanked the government and the concerned ministers for their response to the coordination’s initiative to honor the Egyptian medical teams by minting slogans for them on the coins. The initiative has been launched in April 2020 to immortalize their efforts against the coronavirus pandemic.

 

The Egyptian Ministry of Health announced in a statement that 532 new coronavirus cases were detected on Thursday, upping the total number of confirmed cases in the country to 168,057.

 

Spokesman for the Health Ministry Khaled Megahed said 52 coronavirus-linked deaths were registered over the past 24 hours, raising the overall death toll to 9,512 since the outset of the pandemic.

 

As many as 299 cases were discharged from isolation hospitals after receiving the necessary medical care, taking the total number of recovered cases so far to 131,211, the spokesman added.

 

Egypt has started its vaccination campaign in January, starting with the medical teams at quarantine hospitals, for being on top of priority groups in terms of vaccination.

 

Late in January, Egypt received 50,000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine, the second batch to be delivered to the country after the China’s Sinopharm batch in December.

 

Speaking before the House of Representatives on Thursday, Zayed said that Egypt received on that day the third batch of the Chinese vaccine.

 

Zayed said in statements to MBC channel Sunday, that the Ministry will start vaccinating the elderly along with people with chronic diseases against COVID, in mid-February.