Presidential Adviser for Health Affairs Mohamed Awad Tag El-Din stressed on Wednesday that Egypt has not detected a new strain of the coronavirus in the current third wave of the pandemic so far.

“There are no indications of a third wave’s new strain or new serious symptoms that were not present before in the previous two coronavirus waves,” Tag El-Din explained in TV statements.

On Tuesday, the number of reported daily infections in the country exceeded 1000 for the first time since January.

Tag El-Din noted that despite the harshness of this current wave, which has not peaked yet, there has been no drastic changes in symptoms experienced by patients compared to ones that presented in previous waves.

This is reflected in the fact that most infected cases are being successfully treated at home, he added.

Since early April, Egypt has been seeing a slow but firm increase in the daily number of announced cases, which represent only the number of severe cases received by hospitals.

For those home-isolating cases, the health ministry has allocated a new hotline, 14440, for medical consultations to work alongside the old two general inquiry hotlines, 105 and 15335.

Over 45 percent of the capacity of hospitals treating coronavirus cases nationwide is unoccupied, according to health ministry figures on Tuesday.

Egypt’s tally of COVID-19 infections has so far reached 224,517, including 168,665 recoveries and 13,168 deaths.

The government is undertaking a national vaccination campaign using the Sinopharm and AstraZeneva vaccines.