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 allegations by a relative of one of the patients that the deaths were caused by lack of oxygen in the government’s intensive care unit treating COVID-19 patients. Governor Mamdouh Ghorab said patients died because they suffered from chronic diseases in addition to the virus. The relative, who also filmed the video, offered no immediate evidence to support his claim that the hospital ran out of oxygen.
Egypt, the most populous country in the Arab world with more than 100 million people, is facing an increase in confirmed cases of viruses and has renewed calls for the government to impose a closure to contain a second wave of pandemic.
Sharqia prosecutors said they were investigating the deaths. The hospital director and doctors were questioned, according to a Cairo prosecutor’s office official who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not allowed to report to the media.
The four dead were two women aged 60 and two men, aged 76 and 44, according to local news. There are currently 36 virus-treated patients in the hospital’s isolation room, the governor said.
The deaths follow similar allegations made last week by a relative who said two patients died from a lack of oxygen at a government-run hospital elsewhere in the Nile Delta. Prosecutors in Menoufiya province have launched an investigation into the cause of the deaths on Friday.
Egypt’s top health authority has announced that a Chinese vaccine manufactured by Sinopharm for emergency use has been approved and that inoculations would begin in two weeks. In comments televised on Saturday, Health Minister Hala Zayed said negotiations were also underway to acquire two more vaccines: one from Oxford University and AstraZeneca, as well as one from Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech.
Finance Minister Mohamed Maait said last month that the government had contracted the purchase of 20 million doses of the Pfizer / BioNTech vaccine and 30 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine, according to state newspaper Al-Ahram.
Egypt has experienced an increase in daily reported cases of COVID-19 in recent weeks. The Ministry of Health on Saturday announced more than 1,400 new cases and 54 deaths, one of the highest official daily records since the start of the pandemic last year.
Overall, Egypt has reported 140,878 confirmed cases, including 7,741 deaths. However, the actual number of cases of COVID-19 in Egypt is believed to be much higher, in part due to limited trials and countless patients being treated at home or in private hospitals.