We Record human rights organisation has monitored 438 health care workers detained in Egyptian prisons since 2013. The organisation said that despite the severe shortage of medical staff that leads the Ministry of Health to request volunteers to confront the coronavirus epidemic, the Egyptian authorities are still holding these doctors despite demands for their release. A number of the arrested doctors appealed to the Egyptian authorities for their temporary release to support their colleagues.

Several human rights organisations, including the Office of the United Nations for human rights and the National Council for Human Rights, are calling for the release of detainees who have not been accused of violent crimes, those in pretrial detention, children, the elderly, and those suffering from chronic diseases. Egypt suffers from a severe shortage of doctors working in government hospitals. According to the latest official statistic issued by the Ministry of Health last month, the number of doctors working in the ministry and its affiliated bodies is 46,763 out of 250,000 registered in the union records, which is less than 20 per cent