Egypt’s Ministry of Health and Population announced on Saturday it has begun training doctors to use new drugs to treat coronavirus.
The ministry did not elaborate on which drugs it will use.
Egypt announced earlier this month that it has made contracts to receive two drugs approved by the US and European drug authorities to treat coronavirus patients. The drugs are expected to arrive at the end of January.
Pfizer has been contracted to obtain doses of the first drug that are sufficient for 20,000 people, the spokesperson for the Ministry of Health Hossam Abdel-Ghaffar said, pointing out that Egypt also contracted with AstraZeneca for another drug to be taken by injection.
Egypt’s Presidential Adviser for Health and Preventive Affairs Mohamed Awad Tag-Eddin announced in December that Merck pills to treat people infected with COVID-19 will be manufactured in Egypt within 45 days.
The ministry stressed the importance of receiving the vaccine as the first bulwark in fighting coronavirus. It said that February will witness the peak of the current wave.
The head of Egypt’s Scientific Committee to Combat Coronavirus, Hossam Hosni, said that although the infection increased significantly recently, this is no cause for concern but rather increases our eagerness to receive the vaccine and follow preventive measures to avoid infection.
The rates of infection with COVID-19 and all its variants have witnessed a remarkable increase during the past days, as the number of official infections exceeded 1,100 infections per day, according to the official statement issued by the Ministry of Health on Saturday, which reflects the rapid spread of the virus with the continuation of vaccination drive across the country.
Hosni said that the infection rate is very large during that period, as a result of the high rate of spread of the virus, and therefore precautionary measures must be followed completely, emphasizing the use of a facemask and the necessity of ventilation to avoid the spread of infection.
He pointed out that the rate of infection will continue to rise throughout the months of January and February, as they are the peak of the current wave.
