Cairo governorate said it has dispatched a team to sterilise and disinfect El-Zaitoun Specialised Hospital after detecting coronavirus cases among the hospital’s medical staff.

Sterilising the medical facility comes a day after the health ministry closed the hospital for 14 days following the detection of coronavirus cases among medical staff. The infected members had come in contact with an elderly infected woman who was admitted to the hospital for a dialysis.

An official infection toll at the hospital was not announced, but media reports set the tally at around 23 cases among doctors, nurses and visitors.
The ministry ordered the hospital’s staff to self-quarantine at their homes.

Several healthcare facilities in Egypt have detected cases among their doctors and nurses in the past few days, triggering fears that the outbreak would hit the country’s overwhelmed healthcare sector.

On Thursday, Egypt’s non-profit Magdi Yacoub Heart Foundation said four coronavirus cases were detected at its heart surgery centre in Aswan, including one patient and three security staff members.

Egypt’s Heart Institute announced on Wednesday the shutdown of the institute’s admission department after a nurse tested positive for COVID-19.
Last Saturday, at least 17 doctors and nurses at Egypt’s National Cancer Institute (NCI) tested positive for the coronavirus, according to Cairo University, which manages the country’s main cancer hospital.

Egypt’s Doctors syndicate said three members of the syndicate have died from the virus and 43 have been infected, explaining that it is still in the tallying process and that the numbers announced are “likely to increase."