Egypt confident of managing Covid-19

Harare, (New Ziana)-Outgoing Egyptian ambassador to Zimbabwe Mohamed Fahmy on Monday expressed confidence that his government will succeed in controlling the outbreak of the deadly Covid-19 virus.

Egypt was the first African country to record a confirmed coronavirus case.

The coronavirus, which was first detected in Wuhan, a city in Eastern China in late December last year, is affecting 109 countries and territories around the world.

Since then the disease has hit approximately 80 565 people in mainland China, killing 3 015.

South Korea, Italy and Iran are experiencing the most widespread outbreaks of the disease outside of China.

According to the Africa Centre for Disease Control, at least 90 confirmed cases have been reported in at least 9 African countries with cases in Algeria, Cameroon, Egypt, Morocco, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa, Togo and Tunisia.

Speaking to journalists after paying a farewell courtesy call on President Emmerson Mnangagwa, Fahmy said Egypt was importing latest testing kits, a move towards ensuring that suspected coronavirus cases were confirmed quicker.

“Our government has a good plan for facing this problem facing the whole world. Our Minister of Health is going to Beijing and we are importing 250 000 testing kits and they are very advanced, you only need half an hour to know if the person is positive or negative.

“This is a very good advancement in this case because before we used to quarantine people until the results come, so these new kits allow us to know the results and to separate everyone suspected of having it,” said the envoy.

Egypt recorded Africa’s first fatality after a German tourist died from the coronavirus on Sunday while confirmed cases rose to 55.

Fahmy said he was happy to leave Zimbabwe at a time the country had a promising future.

“I have to express sadness that I am leaving this beautiful country and nation, unfortunately because I will be retiring in a few days. When you are 60 back home, you do retire.

“My end of mission report will definitely emphasize the very promising future for Zimbabwe after the reform process is completed,” he said.

He said one of the successes of his tenure as ambassador to Zimbabwe was his ability to enhance bilateral relations.

“I think some of the positive developments has been bilateral relations between our countries which was very well demonstrated in Ministerial visits by Ministers from different sectors. They would come for conferences, exhibitions and fairs that were held in Cairo in 2018 and 2019 when Egypt was chairing the African Union.

“This was an eye opener for what Egypt and Harare can do in different spheres of common interests like information technology, telecommunication, infrastructure, manufacturing and agriculture.

“We are very happy with the excellent political relationship that we have but we still feel there is a lot to be done in terms of economic relationship as there are a lot of areas that we can cooperate,” said ambassador Fahmy.
New Ziana