ISSN: 0973-7510

E-ISSN: 2581-690X

Research Article | Open Access
Ghada Ismail1,3, Marwa Salah Mostafa2, Hossam Abdelghaffar4,5,Rania Abdel Halim1, Nashwa Naguib Omar1 and Noha Alaa Eldin Fahim1
1Department of Clinical Pathology, Faculty of Medicine, Ain Shams University, Cairo, Egypt.
2Department of Medical Microbiology and Immunology, Faculty of Medicine, Cairo University, Cairo, Egypt.
3Reference Laboratory of the Egyptian University Hospitals (RLEUH), Egypt.
4Department of ENT, Faculty of Medicine, Helwan University, Egypt.
5Supreme Council for University Hospitals, Egypt.
J Pure Appl Microbiol. 2021;15(3):1257-1265 | Article Number: 7055
https://doi.org/10.22207/JPAM.15.3.15 | © The Author(s). 2021
Received: 21/05/2021 | Accepted: 10/06/2021 | Published: 02/07/2021
Abstract

Currently, the sole global concern is recurring waves of the COVID-19 virus that began in 2020 and is ongoing. This study aimed to compare the trends of COVID-19 infections in Egypt during the different waves. We calculated the COVID-19 positivity rate between March 2020 and the fourth week of April 2021 among those tested at the Reference Laboratory of the Egyptian University Hospitals. We then compared our results with those obtained from the WHO and the Egyptian Ministry of Health and Population websites. A dramatic increase in the positivity rate was observed during May and June 2020 (26.35% and 33.11%, respectively). This was followed by an abrupt reduction in July (11.7%), and flattening until a second increase was noted during November (9.6%), which reached its peak during December (17.8%). However, after the figures declined during January 2021, they began to rise again in February 2021 and continued to increase until the end of April 2021, simulating the first wave data. The analysis of the COVID-19 growth rate from April 1st to the 25th, 2021 revealed a slight downward trend in new cases. Data from both the WHO and the Egyptian Ministry of Health and Population websites showed similar patterns to our results. The third wave of COVID-19 started in Egypt. Analyzing future data can aid in forecasting the COVID-19 epidemic and allow us to use foresight to enact effective measures and strategies to keep this virus under control.

Keywords

COVID-19, Egypt, Third wave, Forecasting, Growth rate

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© The Author(s) 2021. Open Access. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License which permits unrestricted use, sharing, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.