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Egypt Stresses Importance of Preventive Measures to Combat COVID-19

An employee wearing a protective face mask, amid concerns over the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) walks next to beds at the Ain Shams field hospital prepared to receive COVID-19 patients in Cairo, Egypt June 16, 2020. REUTERS/Amr Abdallah Dalsh
An employee wearing a protective face mask, amid concerns over the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) walks next to beds at the Ain Shams field hospital prepared to receive COVID-19 patients in Cairo, Egypt June 16, 2020. REUTERS/Amr Abdallah Dalsh
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Egypt Stresses Importance of Preventive Measures to Combat COVID-19

An employee wearing a protective face mask, amid concerns over the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) walks next to beds at the Ain Shams field hospital prepared to receive COVID-19 patients in Cairo, Egypt June 16, 2020. REUTERS/Amr Abdallah Dalsh
An employee wearing a protective face mask, amid concerns over the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) walks next to beds at the Ain Shams field hospital prepared to receive COVID-19 patients in Cairo, Egypt June 16, 2020. REUTERS/Amr Abdallah Dalsh

Egypt on Friday stressed the importance of implementing preventative measures to reduce the risk of the spread of COVID-19, also calling on the population to get vaccinated.

The appeal came as the number of daily infections continued to rise.

The Health Ministry said Friday that 569 new coronavirus cases were detected over the past 24 hours, bringing the total number of cases to 295,051.

In a statement, Health Ministry spokesman Khaled Megahed said 13 patients died from complications caused by the disease, raising the death toll to 16,921.

As many as 447 patients were discharged from hospitals after receiving necessary medical care, taking the number of recoveries to 248,425, he added.

Dr. Mohamed Awad Taj El-Din, adviser to Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi for health affairs said people must adhere to social distancing and wearing face masks, warning that the country is being hit by a fourth wave of the coronavirus.

Taj El-Din said Egypt is taking all measures to preserve the health of the population.

In a television interview broadcast Thursday, the presidential advisor explained that Egypt has exerted all efforts to raise the efficiency of the health system to confront the pandemic.

He stressed that Egypt has allocated $191 million to secure coronavirus vaccine doses to the people and is working to secure the largest possible number of jabs.

Dr. Hossam Hosni, the head of the scientific committee to combat the coronavirus, said vaccines are considered life savers.

Health Minister Hala Zayed announced on Friday the launch of the “Let’s Calm Down Together .. Register Now” vaccination campaign in Qalyubia, Fayoum and Dakahlia to encourage citizens to register on the website and receive the jabs on the same day.

Megahed said that more than 10,000 people have so far registered on the Health Ministry's website to get the vaccine during the campaigns launched in Cairo, Giza and Alexandria on Wednesday and Thursday.

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Red Cross Says Determining Fate of Syria’s Missing ‘Huge Challenge'

People hold portraits of missing relatives during a protest outside the Hijaz train station in the capital Damascus on December 27, 2024, calling for accountability for the perpetrators of crimes in Syria. (AFP)
People hold portraits of missing relatives during a protest outside the Hijaz train station in the capital Damascus on December 27, 2024, calling for accountability for the perpetrators of crimes in Syria. (AFP)
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Red Cross Says Determining Fate of Syria’s Missing ‘Huge Challenge'

People hold portraits of missing relatives during a protest outside the Hijaz train station in the capital Damascus on December 27, 2024, calling for accountability for the perpetrators of crimes in Syria. (AFP)
People hold portraits of missing relatives during a protest outside the Hijaz train station in the capital Damascus on December 27, 2024, calling for accountability for the perpetrators of crimes in Syria. (AFP)

Determining the fate of those who went missing during Syria's civil war will be a massive task likely to take years, the president of the International Committee for the Red Cross said.

"Identifying the missing and informing the families about their fate is going to be a huge challenge," ICRC president Mirjana Spoljaric told AFP in an interview.

The fate of tens of thousands of detainees and missing people remains one of the most harrowing legacies of the conflict that started in 2011 when President Bashar al-Assad's forces brutally repressed anti-government protests.

Many are believed to have been buried in mass graves after being tortured in Syria's jails during a war that has killed more than half a million people.

Thousands have been released since opposition factions ousted Assad last month, but many Syrians are still looking for traces of relatives and friends who went missing.

Spoljaric said the ICRC was working with the caretaker authorities, non-governmental organizations and the Syrian Red Crescent to collect data to give families answers as soon as possible.

But "the task is enormous," she said in the interview late Saturday.

"It will take years to get clarity and to be able to inform everybody concerned. And there will be cases we will never (be able) to identify," she added.

"Until recently, we've been following up on 35,000 cases, and since we established a new hotline in December, we are adding another 8,000 requests," Spoljaric said.

"But that is just potentially a portion of the numbers."

Spoljaric said the ICRC was offering the new authorities to "work with us to build the necessary institution and institutional capacities to manage the available data and to protect and gather what... needs to be collected".

Human Rights Watch last month urged the new Syrian authorities to "secure, collect and safeguard evidence, including from mass grave sites and government records... that will be vital in future criminal trials".

The rights group also called for cooperation with the ICRC, which could "provide critical expertise" to help safeguard the records and clarify the fate of missing people.

Spoljaric said: "We cannot exclude that data is going to be lost. But we need to work quickly to preserve what exists and to store it centrally to be able to follow up on the individual cases."

More than half a century of brutal rule by the Assad family came to a sudden end in early December after a rapid opposition offensive swept across Syria and took the capital Damascus.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based war monitor, says more than 100,000 people have died in detention from torture or dire health conditions across Syria since 2011.