WHO Regional director for the Eastern Mediterranean Ahmed Al-Mandhari said on Tuesday that Egypt is witnessing a steady increase in coronavirus cases, with the daily tally exceeding 400 cases.

During a virtual press conference held by the World Health Organisation in Cairo, Al-Mandhari spoke about how the Eastern Mediterranean region is witnessing a worrying surge in coronavirus cases, especially in Iran and Gaza and the West Bank in Palestine.

Despite the surge in the cases, Al-Mandhari said that countries are unlikely to reinstate lockdown policies.

Also during the webinar, WHO Regional Health Emergency Director Richard Brennan was asked about whether the official numbers reported by the Egyptian health ministry reflect the true number of patients in the country.

Brennan said that different countries use different strategies when it comes to coronavirus testing, and that the Egyptian government has decided to focus on a sub-group of people most at risk from the virus, namely those with chronic diseases. So, it is possible that the mild or moderate coronavirus cases are not in included in these numbers.

“We see that the official numbers in Egypt are more of estimations and do not represent the real number of coronavirus patients, but we [WHO] do not rely on the daily reports only; we also look into other indicators like fatalities, ICU occupancy rate and hospital capabilities,” he said.

Over the past four weeks, the number of coronavirus cases has seen a sharp increase, reaching over 400 cases a day since the start of December.

Egypt has reported 118,847 cases of coronavirus since February, including 103,703 recoveries and 6,790 fatalities.