Egypt reports 181 new coronavirus cases, 27 fatalities in 24 hours

CAIRO - 4 July 2020: The Health Ministry said Saturday night that 181 new coronavirus cases were detected, upping the total number of confirmed cases since the outbreak in the country began to 281,903.

In a statement, Spokesman for the Health Ministry Khaled Megahed said 27 patients have died from the virus over the past 24 hours, raising the death toll to 16,242.

As many as 903 patients were discharged from isolation hospitals after receiving necessary medical care, taking the number of recovered cases to 213,628 so far, the spokesman said.

Egypt signed contracts to get nearly 120 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines, however about 10 million doses are available so far due to the high world demand of COVID-19 jabs, Health Minister Hala Zayed said on Friday.

Zayed said in televised statements that Egypt’s VACSERA has produced around 650,000 doses of the China's Sinovac COVID-19 vaccine, and stability studies on vaccine are conducted and will take a few days, and then the vaccine will be ready to be administered to Egyptian citizens in August.

Egypt will receive raw materials within days to manufacture more doses of Sinovac vaccine, she said.

No stability studies will be conducted in the coming stages of manufacturing and the vaccine will be offered directly to the vaccination centers, she added.

The minister revealed that Egypt is studying vaccinating citizens, who were administered AstraZeneca for their first dose with any other vaccine in the second dose to give them more immunity.

But, Egypt is waiting for the recommendations of the World Health Organization, she clarified.

Egypt seeks to vaccinate 40 million people by the end of the current year, she added.