Egyptian prosecutors have opened an investigation into the deaths of at least four coronavirus patients in a public hospital
The governor of Sharqia province denied the allegations made by a relative of one of the patients that the deaths were caused by a lack of oxygen in the government-run intensive care unit treating COVID-19 patients. Mamdouh Ghorab said the patients died because they suffered from chronic illness in addition to the virus. The family member, who also filmed the video, did not provide immediate evidence for their claim that the hospital was running out of oxygen.
Egypt, the Arab world’s most populous country with over 100 million people, is facing an increase in the number of confirmed virus cases and renewed calls for the government to impose a lockdown to prevent a second wave of the pandemic. to contain.
Sharqia’s prosecutor’s office said they were investigating the dead. The hospital director and doctors were questioned, said a Cairo prosecutor who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief the media.
The four dead were two women in their 60s and two men, aged 76 and 44, according to a local news outlet. There are currently 36 virus patients being treated in the hospital’s isolation ward, the governor said.
The deaths follow similar allegations by a family member last week that two patients died from oxygen deprivation at a government-run hospital elsewhere in the Nile Delta. Prosecutors in Menoufiya province opened an investigation into the cause of death on Friday.
Egypt’s highest health authority has announced that a Chinese vaccine made by Sinopharm has been approved for emergency use and vaccinations would begin within two weeks. Health Minister Hala Zayed said in television commentary on Saturday that negotiations are also underway to purchase two other vaccines – one from Oxford University and AstraZeneca, and one from Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech.
Finance Minister Mohamed Maait said last month that the government has entered into a contract to purchase 20 million doses of the Pfizer / BioNTech vaccine and 30 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine, according to the state-run Al-Ahram daily.
Egypt has seen a spike in the number of COVID-19 cases reported daily in recent weeks. The Ministry of Health announced more than 1,400 new cases and 54 deaths on Saturday, one of the highest official daily figures since the start of the pandemic last year.
In total, Egypt reported 140,878 confirmed cases, including 7,741 deaths. However, the true number of COVID-19 cases in Egypt is believed to be much higher, partly due to limited testing and countless patients being treated at home or in private hospitals.