The Egyptian Ministry of Health and the World Health Organization announced today, Friday, that 12 cases of corona virus were detected on a Nile cruise ship in the south of the country.
Virus-carrying cases are those without symptoms such as fever. No further details on the reported cases were provided by the World Health Organization.
Maria Van Kerkov, a WHO epidemiologist, said on Thursday that the organization does not consider transmission of the disease through carriers of the virus a major factor in its spread.
"We know this is possible, but we do not think it is a major factor for transmission," she said in a press briefing in Geneva.
"Given the actual epidemics and how they spread, if (such cases) were a major factor in the transmission of infection, they would have resulted in many more cases," she added.
She added that by tracking those who have been exposed to the virus in some countries, some people who have not yet had symptoms are being monitored.
"These people are in an early stage of symptoms, so they will show symptoms within a few days," she said.
The World Health Organization and the Egyptian Ministry of Health said in a joint statement that the Nile cruise ship was heading from Aswan to Luxor in the south of the country. It was not clear how many people were on board at the time.
The statement said that the twelve cases were discovered after it was confirmed that an American of Taiwanese origin, who was on board the ship, had contracted the virus after returning to her country.
The statement added that it is believed that this tourist transmitted the infection to others.
The Ministry of Health said that the infected cases would be transferred to a quarantine facility and all those in contact with them would be subjected to a 14-day quarantine.
The Al-Ahram Gate, the website of the state-owned Al-Ahram newspaper, quoted a security source as saying that the River A.A. had been towed to an area about 20 km from Luxor and had also been quarantined.
The newspaper added that the ship arrived in Luxor on Thursday after a two-day Nile cruise that included visiting tourist sites such as Kom Ombo Temple and Edfu.
And Egypt has previously announced the discovery of three cases of HIV infection, one of whom has fully recovered after receiving treatment. The virus first appeared in China last year and spread to more than 85 countries, the number of infected people has exceeded 100,000, and 3,300 have died.