WHO: Egypt should perform more coronavirus tests

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The World Health Organisation has called on Egypt for the second time to increase the number of coronavirus tests and have a unified methodology for doing so. Rana al-Hajjah, Director of Programmes at the WHO Regional Office, said that the most important measures that must be taken to limit the spread of the epidemic is to increase the number of examinations, while isolating the positive cases and tracking contacts quickly.

The President’s Health Adviser, Mohamed Awad Tajeddin, has said that testing for a very large number of people is stressful and costly, and may not contribute towards the discovery of cases. Tajeddin announced last week that Egypt had conducted one million corona tests, but the Information Agency revealed later that only 105,000 PCR tests were performed, while the rest were rapid testing and CT scans.

Egypt faces severe criticism after the Ministry of Health imposed more restrictions on conducting corona tests for suspected cases and contacts with positive cases, after the number of positive cases exceeded 10,000 and the isolation hospitals reached their maximum capacity.