Egypt Reports Lowest COVID-19 Daily Death Count Since Start of Pandemic

Egypt’s Ministry of Health and Population announced on Monday the lowest cases of COVID-19 deaths since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic last year.

In a statement, Egypt’s Ministry reported that 879 people recovered from the virus, bringing the total number of recoveries to 219,291, and that 110 new COVID-19 cases were recorded.

The statement adds that only seven cases of death were reported, which is regarded as the lowest number of COVID-19 daily death cases since last year, Egypt Independent reports. This is the first time since March in 2020 that the number of deaths decreases below ten cases.

This comes after the news last week that Egypt registered a 14.9% increase in deaths in the first half of 2021, according to the the country’s statistics agency CAPMAS. Though it did not specify the underlying cause of death.

Earlier in July, in an effort to achieve self-sufficiency, Egypt’s Ministry of Health and Population stated that Egypt has produced the first local batch (five million doses) of the COVID-19 vaccine, in partnership with the Chinese firm Sinovac.

By the end of 2021, 80 million doses are expected to be locally produced to vaccinate 40 million Egyptians, with further plans to also export an estimated 400 million doses to Egypt’s neighboring countries.

Egypt is also planning to produce 2 million doses of the Pfizer vaccine by the end of this week, as well as Johnson & Johnson vaccine doses, according to a statement by the Ministry of Health’s spokesman Khaled Megahed.