Egypt, the Arab world's most populous country with 102 million, recorded its previous high of 2,291 cases on Wednesday.

In its daily update on the pandemic, the Egyptian Ministry of Health and Population reported 58 new deaths in the past 24 hours nationwide, the highest single day rise since 1 December 2021, bringing the total fatalities nationwide to 22,877.

As many as 1,985 patients have been discharged from isolation hospital, the statement noted, adding that the total number of recoveries reached 369,011.

Egypt is battling a serious spike in COVID-19 infections and deaths due to the outbreak of the Omicron variant.

On 28 January, Egypt surpassed 2,000 new cases per day for the first time since the outbreak of the pandemic, with the daily infection tally hitting record-highs for eight consecutive days.

However, Egypt is expected to witness a decline in infections in two to three weeks, according to Hossam Abdel-Ghaffar, the health ministry spokesman. 

The recent spike in infections comes as Egypt continues to push ahead with efforts to expand its vaccination campaign to vaccinate 70 percent of the population by the second half of 2022 amid the outbreak of the Omicron variant.

On Saturday, Cairo International Airport received 338,800 doses of the AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine donated by Germany.

The shipment is set to be tested at the Egyptian Drug Authority (EDA) laboratories before distribution to vaccination centres across the country.

Egypt has administered a total of 37.9 million first vaccine doses and 27 million second doses since the start of the mass vaccination campaign in January of 2021, according to the health ministry’s daily statistics.

As many as 629,087 booster shots have been administered in recent weeks as well, bringing the total number of doses administered since the start of the campaign to 65.6 million.