Health min. discusses with the Russian ambassador on providing Sputnik-V vaccine to Egypt

CAIRO - 19 April 2020: Minister of Health Hala Zayed discussed on Monday with Russian Ambassador in Cairo Georgiy Borisenko on means of providing the Russian Sputnik-V vaccine to Egypt to help it curb the spread of coronavirus under directives of President Abdel Fattah El Sisi.

The meeting was attended by assistant Health Minister For Public Health Initiatives Mohamed Hassani and Head of the Central Administration for Technical Support and Head of the Minister's Technical Office Neveen El Nahhas.

According to Health Ministry Spokesman Khaled Megahed, the two sides discussed means of manufacturing the Russian vaccine in Egypt through the Egyptian companies to secure the local needs for the vaccines and increase investment opportunities by exporting the products to the African market.

Megahed said the Russian vaccine has received the approval of the Egyptian Drug Authority (EDA) and would be given priority in its roll-out among the state's employees and workers in the various sectors.

The Russian diplomat, for his part, asserted that his country is ready to fully cooperate with Egypt in countering the spread of coronavirus, affirming that the two countries relations are deeply rooted. He also reiterated that Moscow will soon end measures to send amounts of Sputnik-V vaccines to Egypt.

Zayed, in a press conference earlier in April, said the cabinet has approved the manufacturing of the Chinese Sinovac vaccine locally by state-owned vaccine maker Vacsera.

She added that one of the vaccine manufacturer’s factories can produce 20 million doses while the other has a production capacity of 60 million doses annually. Some of the doses will be exported to Africa, she noted.

Egypt has so far received over 1.5 million doses of coronavirus vaccines of Sinopharm and AstraZeneca and has started its vaccination campaign in January.

In mid-April, the head of the preventive healthcare sector at the health ministry said 320,000 Egyptians have been vaccinated against the coronavirus as part of the national campaign.

It should be noted that Egypt detected on Sunday 850 new coronavirus cases were detected, upping the total number of confirmed cases since the outbreak in the country began to 216,334. Megahed said 44 patients have died from the virus over the past 24 hours, raising the death toll to 12,738.

As many as 765 patients were discharged from isolation hospitals after receiving necessary medical care, taking the number of recovered cases to 163,479 so far, the spokesman said.