The coronavirus will become a seasonal illness like influenza and swine flu after the world manages to curb its swift spread, an Egyptian presidential health adviser has said.

“After a while, the coronavirus will turn into a chronic disease, like influenza [and] swine flu which remains a seasonal virus,” presidential health adviser Mohamed Awad Tag El-Din said in TV comments late on Tuesday.

Tag El-Din said the pandemic will change radically when the virus loses its intensity and the human body gains immunity against it until it turns into a seasonal virus.

Egypt’s daily tally of coronavirus infections has reduced in recent weeks, hovering between 900-1,000 over the past week. The health ministry reported 929 new coronavirus cases on Tuesday, bringing total infectionssince the outbreak began in February to 83,930 , including 4,008 fatalities.

Egypt began relaxing restrictions aimed at stemming the spread of the virus late last month, lifting a nighttime curfew and allowing more businesses to reopen.

“When the numbers fall or become steady for a week then begin to gradually decline, we can say we have reached the [virus] peak and begin to see a decrease in infections,” Tag El-Din said in a telephone interview with state-owned Channel 1, adding “we could be close” to this point.

The presidential adviser said that Egypt's situation of the coronavirus crisis is much better compared to last month, citing the decline in infections and the reduced severity of the disease.

The argument that the ferocity of Covid-19 is weakening is "scientific" and is frequent in all types of viruses, he said.

"As it is a new virus, the human body was not recognising it at the beginning when it first appeared, and therefore it was difficult for the immune system to resist it in some cases," Tag El-Din said, adding that the more the virus transmits from one person to another, the more its strength declines.



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