Egypt 'likely under-reporting 19,000+' coronavirus cases, disease specialists believe.
Posted: Tue Mar 17, 2020 2:44 pm
Disease specialists in Canada accused Egyptian authorities of withholding the country's real number of coronavirus cases, The Guardian reported on Sunday.
Egypt's official toll stands at 126 cases of the novel COVID-19, some of which include foreign nationals as well as Egyptians.
However, Canadian disease specialists believe Egypt, which is home to more than 100 million people, is likely to be underreporting the cases due to the increasing number of infections among tourists.
At least 97 foreign nationals who visited Egypt since mid-February showed symptoms or tested positive for the novel coronavirus after returning home from their trip, The Guardian reported, citing public health data.
The majority of these cases reportedly spent time on Nile cruises believed to be the source of the outbreak in the southern city of Luxor, a tourism hotspot frequented by millions of foreign nationals every year.
"Under the conservative estimate of COVID-19 burden, where linked and ambiguous cases are eliminated, we estimated an outbreak size of 19,310 cases in Egypt," they said, using a mix of flight data, traveller data and infection rates.
"Egypt likely has a large burden of COVID-19 cases that are unreported and greater public health clinical capacity may help identify and manage cases."
Source: https://www.alaraby.co.uk/english/news/ ... ts-believe
Egypt's official toll stands at 126 cases of the novel COVID-19, some of which include foreign nationals as well as Egyptians.
However, Canadian disease specialists believe Egypt, which is home to more than 100 million people, is likely to be underreporting the cases due to the increasing number of infections among tourists.
At least 97 foreign nationals who visited Egypt since mid-February showed symptoms or tested positive for the novel coronavirus after returning home from their trip, The Guardian reported, citing public health data.
The majority of these cases reportedly spent time on Nile cruises believed to be the source of the outbreak in the southern city of Luxor, a tourism hotspot frequented by millions of foreign nationals every year.
"Under the conservative estimate of COVID-19 burden, where linked and ambiguous cases are eliminated, we estimated an outbreak size of 19,310 cases in Egypt," they said, using a mix of flight data, traveller data and infection rates.
"Egypt likely has a large burden of COVID-19 cases that are unreported and greater public health clinical capacity may help identify and manage cases."
Source: https://www.alaraby.co.uk/english/news/ ... ts-believe
