The Egyptian tourist town of Gouna in the Red Sea Governorate, southeast of Egypt, was free of epidemic diseases and viral illnesses, the Health Ministry reported.
The Health Ministry confirmed on Monday that a report by the Health Ministry earlier this month pointed to the deaths of three children in the city due to an "unknown pandemic viral disease." First Undersecretary of the Health Ministry Amr Kandil said on Monday that surveillance confirmed the absence of any epidemic.
Kandil went on to say that all three children had been admitted to the same hospital and that therefore, the prosecution was investigating some hospital procedures that were performed. He added that according to the Health Ministry’s report, the three children, aged 5 months, 11 months, and one year, died after catching a fever.
The official said he was forming a disease control and prevention team to intensify surveillance work in order to detect similar symptoms throughout hospitals in the Red Sea Governorate. Kandil said that an emergency room would be available 24/7 in Gouna.
He ruled out the possibility of an epidemic since “the patients that died didn’t reside in the same house or building but in separate residential areas.”
Kandil said that the children went to different nurseries and that none of the children’s contacts showed any symptoms from 1 to 15 May. According to Kandil, the number of patients admitted to hospitals in the area was similar to that of previous months as well as for the same period last year.
Translated from the Arabic Edition
