Egypt has ended a 14-day quarantine for hundreds of Egyptian citizens who had returned home from the Chinese city of Wuhan, the epicenter of the coronavirus, Health Minister Hala Zayed announced in a press conference.

Zayed said that all tests conducted on the 302 Egyptian citizens during the 14-day period, which is how long it takes for the disease to incubate, have shown that they are free of the virus or any other infectious diseases.

The Egyptian government had designated El-Negelah Central Hospital in Marsa Matrouh as a quarantine hospital to house the returnees.

The ministry has already taken the citizens back to their residences in Cairo and Alexandria on buses.

The announcement comes two weeks after Egypt sent a special jet to bring back hundreds of Egyptian nationals from Wuhan as the epidemic caused a global scare.

Last Friday, Egypt confirmed its first coronavirus case in the country, adding that the ill person was a foreigner, without giving further details.

The person tested positive for the quick-spreading virus but had no symptoms, health ministry spokesman Khaled Megahed said over the weekend, adding that he had been quarantined in a hospital.

This is the first reported case in Africa amid the outbreak of the epidemic which killed 1,770 since December, with over 70,000 infected globally, with the vast majority in mainland China.

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