CAIRO: Khaled Abdel Ghaffar, the acting Egyptian minister of health, confirmed no cases of the new coronavirus omicron variant have been found in the North African country.
Abdel Ghaffar said recent studies had taken samples from all of Egypt’s governorates, so far failing to report a single case.
He added that no country is able to prevent the entry of any mutation, but that the government was ready for all variants of the virus.
Hossam Abdel Ghaffar, a spokesman for the Egyptian Ministry of Health, denied claims that two people were infected with the omicron variant on a plane from Ethiopia, and also denied the arrival of an Egyptian citizen carrying the mutation in Cairo on a plane from South Africa.
He stressed people would need to continue to adhere to the precautionary measures implemented at all entry points to the country.
The Ministry of Health decided to conduct rapid COVID-19 tests for those flying into Egypt from South Africa, Lesotho, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Namibia and Eswatini, sending back any positive cases on the plane they arrived on, or quarantining them if their final destination was Egypt.
The minister stressed that the state’s procedures are within the framework of preventing the entry of the omicron variant into Egypt, and added that when a case is identified, it will be announced with full transparency.
On Friday Egypt recorded 933 new cases of COVID-19 and 49 deaths, bringing the total number of cases recorded in Egypt to 361,368, of which 299,434 have recovered, and 20,643 deaths.
