CAIRO: Egypt signalled an expansion of testing for the new coronavirus on Wednesday, announcing that all the country’s 320 general hospitals would offer testing to people showing symptoms of the illness.
People with minor symptoms will be sent home as they await test results, while those showing serious symptoms will be kept in hospital, according to a government statement. Since May 14, some patients with minor symptoms are being asked to self-isolate at home rather than in quarantine hospitals.
Egypt confirmed 745 new cases of the coronavirus on Wednesday, the highest daily increase yet, bringing the total number of confirmed cases to 14,229.
The health ministry reported 21 new deaths, raising total deaths to 680. The number of people confirmed to have recovered stands at 3,994.
The World Health Organization has urged Egypt to expand the number of tests, without saying what level of testing it considers appropriate.
Authorities have not released regular updates on the number of tests carried out, though a presidential adviser said earlier this month that 105,000 PCR tests had been conducted.
Egypt to offer coronavirus testing in all general hospitals
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Egypt to offer coronavirus testing in all general hospitals
- People with minor symptoms will be sent home as they await test results
- Those showing serious symptoms will be kept in hospital, the govt says
The UN says Al-Hol camp population has dropped sharply as Syria moves to relocate remaining families
The UN says Al-Hol camp population has dropped sharply as Syria moves to relocate remaining families
- Forces of Syria’s central government captured the Al-Hol camp on Jan. 21 during a weekslong offensive against the SDF, which had been running the camp near the border with Iraq for a decade
DAMASCUS: The UN refugee agency said Sunday that a large number of residents of a camp housing family members of suspected Daesh group militants have left and the Syrian government plans to relocate those who remain.
Gonzalo Vargas Llosa, UNHCR’s representative in Syria, said in a statement that the agency “has observed a significant decrease in the number of residents in Al-Hol camp in recent weeks.”
“Syrian authorities have informed UNHCR of their plan to relocate the remaining families to Akhtarin camp in Aleppo Governorate (province) and have requested UNHCR’s support to assist the population in the new camp, which we stand ready to provide,” he said.
He added that UNHCR “will continue to support the return and reintegration of Syrians who have departed Al-Hol, as well as those who remain.”
The statement did not say how residents had left the camp or how many remain. Many families are believed to have escaped either during the chaos when government forces captured the camp from the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces last month or afterward.
There was no immediate statement from the Syrian government and a government spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.
At its peak after the defeat of IS in Syria in 2019, around 73,000 people were living at Al-Hol. Since then, the number has declined with some countries repatriating their citizens. The camp’s residents are mostly children and women, including many wives or widows of IS members.
The camp’s residents are not technically prisoners and most have not been accused of crimes, but they have been held in de facto detention at the heavily guarded facility.
Forces of Syria’s central government captured the Al-Hol camp on Jan. 21 during a weekslong offensive against the SDF, which had been running the camp near the border with Iraq for a decade. A ceasefire deal has since ended the fighting.
Separately, thousands of accused IS militants who were held in detention centers in northeastern Syria have been transferred to Iraq to stand trial under an agreement with the US
The US military said Friday that it had completed the transfer of more than 5,700 adult male IS suspects from detention facilities in Syria to Iraqi custody.
Iraq’s National Center for International Judicial Cooperation said a total of 5,704 suspects from 61 countries who were affiliated with IS — most of them Syrian and Iraqi — were transferred from prisons in Syria. They are now being interrogated in Iraq.
