Deadly fire kills 7 coronavirus patients at Egyptian hospital
- 27 Dec 2020
Gulf Today Report
A fire killed at least seven people and injured several others on Saturday at a private hospital that was treating coronavirus patients on the outskirts of the Egyptian capital Cairo, local sources and media said.
The hospital was evacuated and patients were transferred to a public hospital, according to security sources.
Firefighters were dispatched to the facility and stopped the blaze from spreading, local media reported.
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The fire broke out at about 9 a.m. at Misr Al Amal Hospital in El Obour, some 30 km (19 miles) northeast of central Cairo, and according to initial investigations was caused by an electrical fault, security and medical sources said.
Egypt has seen a sharp increase in the number of officially confirmed coronavirus cases over the past week. The health ministry recorded 1,189 new cases and 43 deaths on Saturday, bringing the total since the start of the pandemic to 131,315 cases including 7,352 deaths.
Health experts and some government officials say the real numbers are likely to be much higher due to the low rate of public PCR testing and the exclusion of private test results from the ministry’s figures.
