Egypt launches investigation after locals find over 122K doses of Sinopharm vaccine dumped in wastewater canal

CAIRO – 8 October 2021: Local villagers in Upper Egypt have found a large number of doses of the Chinese COVID-19 Sinopharm vaccine dumped on a small wastewater canal in a village of Bani Mazar city, Minya governorate on Thursday.

 

One of the locals shot a video for the dumped doses and posted on social media platforms where the video, then, went viral. 

 

Local villagers in Upper Egypt have found a large number of doses of the Chinese COVID-19 Sinopharm vaccine dumped on a small wastewater canal in a village of Bani Mazar city, Minya governorate.

Details at: https://t.co/VupfLRUeEl#EgyptToday #Egypt| #مصر #فيروس #كورونا #المنيا pic.twitter.com/SdY7VCHLDd

— Egypt Today Magazine (@EgyptTodayMag) October 8, 2021

Al-Shorouk newspaper reported that the amount of the dumped vaccines reached 122,300 doses of the Chinese Sinopharm vaccine.

 

Immediately, Judge Ezzat Abu Zaid, head of the Administrative Prosecution Authority launched an urgent investigation into the incident. 

 

An official at the Health Directorate in Minya told the newspaper that the undersecretary of the Ministry of Health ordered an inventory of all the quantities received from the vaccines, and the quantities inside the warehouses of all health departments.

 

The dumped doses were found 10 days after the Minister of Health Hala Zayed announced on 29 September 2021 that Egypt received a total of 4,424,400 Covid-19 vaccines from China's Sinopharm Group as “part of the state's efforts to provide jabs against the pandemic.”

 


One million doses of the vaccine were received at Cairo International Airport Tuesday evening from the Chinese company along with 3,000 liters of raw ingredients enough to manufacture 4.6 million doses, according to Assistant Health Minister and Health Ministry Spokesman Khaled Megahed.



 

All vaccines that reach Egypt are approved by the World Health Organization and the Egyptian Drug Authority for emergency use, he said, stressing that all shipments are tested at the authority labs before distribution among the 1,100 vaccination centers across the country.

 

Egypt received up to 60 million doses so far of different covid-19 vaccines according to the spokesperson for the Ministry of Health Khaled Mgahed, on October 5, 2021.