Egyptian pathologist Heba Mostafa said that a coronavirus vaccine should arrive within the market starting April 2021, according to positive test results from US national health institutes.
Mostafa is an assistant professor specializing in pathology at Johns Hopkins University. She graduated from Faculty of Medicine in Alexandria in 2004, and received a PhD in Microbiology from University of Kansas in 2014.
She is also a member of a medical squad testing a vaccine.
The US Food and Drug Administration allowed academic medical centers to develop their own tests. According to Mostafa, the hard part was obtaining the necessary viral genomic materials for the virus.
“Once we got everything we needed, we were able to complete the verification process in a short period,” Heba noted.
Mostafa said that many methods have been utilized to detect for the virus, such as PCR testing which she said is the the most effective and accurate means yet.
Egypt’s Health Ministry on Sunday confirmed 239 new coronavirus cases, bringing the country’s total number of confirmed cases up to 109,201, ministry spokesperson Khaled Megahed announced.
The total number of COVID-19-related deaths has now reached 6,368 nationwide, after the ministry announced 13 deaths on Monday.
Monday saw 103 patients discharged from quarantine at isolation hospitals, raising Egypt’s total number of fully-recovered cases to 100,342.
Egypt’s government back in March imposed precautionary measures to limit the outbreak of the coronavirus, which included setting curfews, banning large gatherings, and closing restaurants, theaters, and cinemas.
The measures also include a mask mandate that applies to mass transportation and any public indoor space.
Edited translation from Al-Masry Al-Youm
