CAPE TOWN - Egypt has surpassed the 20,000 mark in coronavirus infections and is the African country with the highest number of Covid-19-related deaths, which now stands at 845, the health ministry said in a statement released by the State Information Services on Thursday.
The country has 20,793 confirmed cases of coronavirus infection.
Health ministry spokesperson Khaled Megahed said 29 patients had died of the coronavirus in the past 24 hours.
Egypt recorded 1,127 cases on May 28, its highest daily infection rate since the country posted its first case on February 15.
According to the ministry, as many as 154 patients had been discharged from isolation hospitals, taking the number of recovered patients to 5,359 since the outbreak of the coronavirus in the North African country.
Megahed explained that the number of coronavirus patients who had been re-tested and received negative results stood at 6,019.
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly on Thursday said that the government fully supported the efforts of all medical staff in the fight against the coronavirus.
Madbouly was speaking at a cabinet meeting on Thursday, where he insisted that protecting medical staff against the coronavirus was vital and that beds for medical workers had been provide in isolation facilities.
The prime minister also reviewed recommendations to train intern doctors in emergency skills that will allow them to provide patients with critical care and enable them to control infections.
According to BBC news, Egyptian Health Minister Hala Zayed said that since the start of the outbreak, the ministry had ensured the allocation of a floor in every quarantine hospital with a 20-bed capacity to treat those infected among medical staff.