Haggard and dishevelled from the stress of making ends meet, day labourers line up in Cairo for food parcels after losing their jobs to the sharp downturn caused by the coronavirus.

At least 15 medics in Egypt's main cancer hospital have been quarantined after testing positive for the coronavirus, officials said Saturday, raising fears the pandemic could prey on health facilities in the Arab world's most populous country.

Egypt has reported around 1,000 confirmed cases and 66 fatalities from the global pandemic. Authorities have closed schools and mosques, banned public gatherings and imposed a nighttime curfew to prevent the virus from spreading among the population of 100 million, a fifth of whom live in the densely-populated capital, Cairo.

A second senior military officer in Egypt has died of the new coronavirus, state television reported Monday, as the officially declared death toll stood at 14 from 327 cases recorded nationwide.

Egypt detected 12 new cases Friday of the novel coronavirus among workers aboard a Nile cruise boat heading from Aswan to Luxor, a healthy ministry statement said.

Egypt executed Wednesday an ex-special forces officer turned top Islamist militant, Hisham Ashmawy, over involvement in high-profile attacks, said the army. 

An Egyptian court Monday sentenced to death an ex-special forces officer turned Islamist militant and 36 other jihadists over several terror attacks, including an assassination bid on a former interior minister.

Egypt on Monday reported its second case of novel coronavirus, more than two weeks after announcing the first confirmed infection in Africa.

The foreigner is showing "minor symptoms" and has been quarantined, the ministry and the World Health Organization said in a joint statement.

Egypt was to hold a military funeral Wednesday for former president Hosni Mubarak, whose three decades of strong-arm rule ended in the Arab Spring protests of 2011.

Militants blew up a gas pipeline Sunday in Egypt's restive Sinai Peninsula, security sources said.

Egypt has accused four staff of Turkey's state news agency Anadolu whom it arrested of spreading "false news" and working with the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood group.