Sisi directs government to provide COVID-19 vaccine when available: PM

CAIRO- 23 July 2020: President Abdel Fattah El Sisi directed the government to provide coronavirus vaccine when it will be available by the international pharmaceutical companies, said Prime Minister Moustafa Madbouli in a cabinet meeting on Thursday.

Madbouli received a report from the Chairman of the Egyptian Authority for Unified Procurement, Medical Supply and Technology Management (AUPP) Bahaa el Din Zidan reviewing the efforts of the the AUPP to follow up producing a coronavirus vaccine by international companies.

In the report, Zidan said that the Vaccine Alliance (GAVI) presented the available vaccines and set a schedule to start the manufacturing operation and giving it to the different countries.

The vaccine will be manufactured in September and October, he said, adding that GAVI will put the plan of distributing it to the different countries.

On June 22, 2020, the Egyptian Drug Authority announced signing a deal with AstraZeneca to supply the country with the Oxford University's vaccine for COVID-19 without disclosing the number of doses or the delivery date.

Ahmed Salman, the only Egyptian researcher in the team working on the vaccine at Oxford University, said in a phone-in with TV anchor Amr Adib on June 13 that the vaccine is being experimented on a larger number of humans.

On June 4, 2020, President Sisi said that Egypt continues its ongoing trials to develop a vaccine for the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) as he took part in the virtual Global Vaccines Summit chaired by the United Kingdom.

Additional reporting by MENA