Egypt receives 2 million doses of China’s Sinovac vaccine

CAIRO – 1 November 2021: Egypt’s Ministry of Health announced Monday, receiving 2 million doses of the ‘Sinovac’ Coronavirus vaccine at Cairo International Airport provided by the Chinese government in the framework of joint cooperation between Egypt and China to confront the pandemic.

The Ministry said that the new shipment will be delivered to the laboratories of the Medicines Authority for analysis, and then it will be released to be distributed to vaccination centers.

It affirmed that the vaccine is safe and effective.

Egypt’s Health Ministry said that 933 new coronavirus cases were detected, upping the total number of confirmed cases reported in the country since the beginning of the outbreak to 331,017.

In a statement, Sunday Spokesman for the Health Ministry Khaled Megahed said 59 patients have died from the virus over the past 24 hours, raising the death toll to 18,651

As many as 644 patients were discharged from isolation hospitals after receiving necessary medical care, taking the number of recovered cases to 278,267 so far, the spokesman said

Consultant to the President for Health and Preventive Affairs Awad Tag al-Din stated Sunday in a phone-in that Egypt has spent $400 million on anti-COVID-19 vaccines.

Tag el-Din added that those included Chinese vaccines, AstraZeneca, and Johnson & Johnson. That is in addition to the doses acquired through Covax, and as donations from other countries.

The official noted that there is a target to make 40 million adults fully vaccinated. The figure now stands at 25 million. As for the total of doses injected into citizens, the number is 35 million. 

On Oct. 25, the Ministry announced receiving the third shipment of Johnson & Johnson vaccine including 1,058,400 million doses.

This comes within the framework of the mechanism of the African Vaccine Acquisition Trust (AVAT) in cooperation with the African Export–Import Bank as part of the state's plan on diversity and expansion in providing anti-coronavirus vaccine.

Megahed asserted the importance of continuous cooperation with the international organizations to stand against the coronavirus pandemic and provide the vaccine for the citizens.