Egypt’s isolation hospitals provided with COVID-19 rapid test kits

CAIRO - 13 April 2020: Egypt’s Ministry of Health started providing the isolation hospitals across the country with Coronavirus (COVID-19) Rapid Test Kits, announced the ministry in a statement on Monday.

The kits will also be provided to the chest and fever hospitals, the statement said, noting that medical staff at hospitals should undergo the COVID-19 rapid tests every two weeks.

The Health Ministry announced Monday that 125 new coronavirus cases were detected; all of them Egyptians, upping the total number of confirmed cases to 2190, Spokesman for the Health Ministry Khaled Megahed said in a statement.

Five patients have died from the virus over the past 24 hours, raising the death toll to 164, the spokesman said.

The spokesman said that the number of patients that were discharged from hospitals after receiving necessary medical care rose to 448 on Monday.

Also, the number of coronavirus patients who had now been retested for the virus and had received negative results has reached 622.

On Wednesday, Egypt extended a nationwide night-time curfew by two additional weeks, Prime Minister Mustafa Madbouli said in a televised interview, as the country is tailoring measures to contain the coronavirus (COVID-19) situation in the country.