Fire in Egypt hospital kills 7 COVID-19 patients

CAIRO: A fire at a hospital in Egypt’s coastal city of Alexandria on Monday killed seven coronavirus patients, security and medical sources said.

Seven other people were injured in the blaze, believed to be caused by a malfunctioning air conditioner in an area designated for isolating COVID-19 patients, the sources said.

Firefighters stopped it spreading to other hospital buildings,andambulancesweredispatchedtotransfer patients to other medical facilities, the state-run newspaper Akhbar Al Youm reported.

The victims died of suffocation and hospital staff were among those injured, according to local media.

Egypt’s prosecutor-general said in a statement that it has launched an investigation into the incident focusing on the technical specifications of the private hospital’s intensive care unit.

Egypt has so far registered 65,188 COVID-19 cases including 2,789 fatalities.

SYRIA AID: Aid organisations on Monday made a plea for world leaders to boost financial support to conflict-torn Syria where around 11 million people are in need of humanitarian assistance, on the eve of a major donor conference hosted by the European Union.

Theconflicthaskilledmorethan400,000people and sparked a refugee exodus that has destabilized Syria’s neighbors and hit Europe, but now economic chaos and the spread of the coronavirus are weighing even more heavily on its long-suffering people.

Syria’s struggling economy has sharply deteriorated recently. Prices have soared and the national currency, the Syrian pound, has collapsed, partly due to fears that international sanctions would further isolate the country. Farmers desperately need funds to prepare next year’s crops.

“Syrians who have already endured almost a decade of war and displacement are now facing unprecedented levels of hunger leaving millions of people acutely vulnerable to COVID-19,” the aid agencies said in a joint statement.

“A staggering 9.3 million Syrians are now going to sleep hungry and more than another 2 million are at risk of a similar fate,” said Oxfam, Humanity & Inclusion, CARE International, World Vision International, International Rescue Committee, Mercy Corps, and the Norwegian Refugee Council.