Egypt national team doctor, Ahmed Abo Abla, revealed that a number of staff members and players have tested positive for COVID-19 just days before the AFCON.
The Pharaohs are set to travel to Garoua on Saturday morning where they will play their group-stages games with Nigeria and Guinea-Bissau, with their clash against Sudan being held in Yaoundé.
However, just 24 hours before the flight, two COVID-19 cases were announced, namely goalkeeping coach Essam El-Hadary and Zamalek’s goalkeeper Mohamed Abo-Gabal.
But that wasn’t all of it, just a few hours later, the EFA have released a statement announcing new COVID-19 cases among the team staff members and players.
Mohamed Salah and Ali Mohamed Ali are two members of the managerial staff whose swab tests returned positive and as a result, won’t travel with the rest of the team on Saturday.
Joining the duo are performance analyst Gerard Moore and conditioning specialist Mostafa Sadek, who also tested positive for COVID-19.
Due to the increasing number of COVID-19 cases, Egypt had called three extra players for the reserves list just for precautionary measures during the tournament.
The list included Marwan Hamdi, Ibrahim Adel, and Mohamed Hamdi and two of them won’t make it to Cameroon, namely the Pyramids FC duo Adel and Hamdi.
Wonderkid Ibrahim Adel had his COVID-19 swab test return positive to become the seventh member of the Egyptian national team to contract the virus.
Meanwhile, Pyramids FC’s left-back Mohamed Hamdi has picked up a knee injury, which will prevent him from participating in the tournament.
Egypt’s national team doctor Ahmed Abo Abla has confirmed that the Pharaohs have already submitted an official request to replace Hamdi with a new player, according to the tournament’s rules.
