Egyptian Public Prosecutor Hamada el-Sawy ordered late on Sunday 23 people to remain in detention for 15 days pending an investigation into blocking a road to a cemetery in a Nile Delta village to prevent the burial of a physician who died from the coronavirus.
Sawy described preventing her burial as a “terrorist act.”
The 64-year-old physician died on Friday in a quarantine-designed hospital in the Suez Canal city of Ismailia, and her body was being transferred to her husband’s village of Shubra el-Bahou in the Nile Delta when dozens of villagers tried to stop her burial. They feared that the burial would spread contagion.
Police fired tear gas to displace the protesters and arrested 23 of them.
Egypt has reported at least 159 fatalities, and 2,065 confirmed cases.
Neighboring Sudan, meanwhile, will impose a lockdown on the capital Khartoum, the country's most populous city, for three weeks after 10 more cases of the new coronavirus were discovered on Monday, its information minister said.
The lockdown will start on Saturday, Faisal Saleh told Reuters.
In total, 29 coronavirus cases have been discovered in Sudan.
Deaths in Morocco
Morocco reported on Monday two new deaths from the novel coronavirus, taking the toll to 120.
It also diagnosed 75 new cases, raising the country’s count to 1,746.
Nineteen patients have recovered, bringing the tally to 196, and 7,206 people have tested negative for the virus.
The ministry urged the people to adhere to preventive measures and act responsibly during the crisis.
Gaza resumes virus testing
Coronavirus testing has resumed in the Gaza Strip after Israel allowed five testing kits purchased by the World Health Organization (WHO) into the enclave, a Gaza health ministry spokesman said on Monday.
But the spokesman, Ashraf al-Qidra, said the kits would be of “limited immediate help” because they could be used to test only about 500 people in a densely populated territory of two million.
“We began testing immediately after receiving the kits late (Sunday) night,” Qidra said. “We need to carry out these tests all the time and therefore, we are in need of thousands of testing kits.”
On April 8, health officials in Gaza said they had run out of testing kits and voiced concern that a shortage of medical supplies could lead to the rapid spread of infection in the territory.
Gaza has 13 confirmed cases of the new coronavirus, all in quarantine.
Israel has maintained a blockade of the enclave for more than a decade, saying the measure is necessary to stop weapons and funds from reaching its enemy Hamas, an Islamist group that runs Gaza.
But Colonel Sharon Biton of COGAT, an Israeli defense ministry office that liaises with the Palestinians, said it was cooperating with “representatives of the international community” to maintain public health in Gaza.
Israeli and Palestinian officials said that in addition to the testing kits, Israel has allowed a PCR machine into the territory. The equipment analyses testing samples to determine whether they contain the genetic fingerprint of the coronavirus.
The machine was donated by a US-based charity, Qidra said.
“During the next week we aspire to be able to buy a good quantity of testing kits to bring into Gaza,” said Abdelnaser Soboh, director of the World Health Organization’s sub-office in the territory.
Qidra said that on Monday, hundreds of Palestinians stranded outside Gaza will begin arriving home and would require tests. Upon arrival, they will be sent to quarantine facilities in the southern Gaza Strip for three weeks.
Hamas has closed schools, mosques and wedding halls and banned large street gatherings in Gaza to try to stem contagion. It has not moved to impose a lockdown, saying the measure was not yet necessary.
