Egyptian prosecutors opened an investigation into the deaths of at least four coronavirus patients at a public hospital
The governor of Sharqia province denied allegations by a relative of one of the patients that the deaths were caused by a lack of oxygen in the government’s intensive care unit that treats patients at COVID-19. Governor Mamdouh Ghorab said the patients died because they suffered from chronic illnesses 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 inhabitants, is facing an increase in confirmed cases of viruses and new calls for the government to impose a blockade to contain a second wave of the pandemic.
Sharqia’s prosecution said it was investigating the deaths. The hospital director and doctors were being questioned, according to a Cairo public prosecutor who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to inform the media.
The four dead were two women in their 60s and two men, 76 and 44, according to a local media outlet. There are currently 36 patients with viruses being treated in the hospital’s isolation wing, the governor said.
The deaths follow similar allegations made by a relative last week that two patients died from lack of oxygen in a government-run hospital elsewhere in the Nile Delta. Prosecutors in Menoufiya province launched an investigation into the cause of the deaths on Friday.
Egypt’s top health official announced that a Chinese vaccine produced by Sinopharm was approved for emergency use and inoculations would begin within two weeks. In televised comments on Saturday, Health Minister Hala Zayed said negotiations were also underway to purchase two other 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 signed a contract to buy 20 million doses of the Pfizer / BioNTech vaccine and 30 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine, according to the state newspaper Al-Ahram.
Egypt has seen an increase in 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 counts since the pandemic began last year.
Overall, Egypt reported 140,878 confirmed cases, including 7,741 deaths. However, the actual number of COVID-19 cases in Egypt is believed to be much higher, in part due to limited testing and the countless number of patients being treated at home or in private hospitals.