2.8 million people received coronavirus vaccine booster shots in Egypt: Ministry

CAIRO – 29 April 2022: Egypt has administered 2.8 million coronavirus vaccine booster shots since the start of the pandemic, the Egyptian Ministry of Health announced on Friday.

Khaled Abdel Ghaffar, the Minister of Higher Education and Acting Minister of Health, said more than 81.3 million coronavirus vaccine shots have been so far administered to Egyptian citizens and people residing in Egypt.

The vaccination rate against the coronavirus in Egypt has reached 79.53 doses per 100 citizens, Abdel Ghaffar said, affirming that this is considered one of the high vaccination rates worldwide, according to the classification of the World Health Organization (WHO).

The ministry’s remarks come within the framework of the World Immunization Week, which is observed by WHO in the last week of April with the aim of shedding light on the collective action required and to promote the use of vaccines to protect people of all ages against disease.

On Saturday, the Health Ministry said the average of the daily new coronavirus cases stood at 89 during the past week, while average number of related deaths declined to 6.

In a statement, Spokesman for the Health Ministry Hossam Abdel Ghaffar said the daily average of recoveries recorded 100, bringing the total number of recoveries to 444,703.

Meanwhile, the total number of vaccinated people hit 34,730,986.

On 14 April, Egypt’s Qena governorate has been declared free from coronavirus for the first time since the outbreak of the virus in March 2022, said the Ministry of Health and Population in a statement.

The ministry added that all the PCR samples for suspected cases or travelers in the governorate tested negative for the virus over the past 15 days.

The ministry attributed the reason to the high vaccination rates and booster doses given to citizens. He added that medical teams across the governorate’s hospitals commit to their national duty to deliver the vaccine to all citizens.

On April 6, 2022, the ministry also declared the northern Egyptian governorate of Beheira free from coronavirus cases for the first time since the start of the pandemic.

Beheira has been one of the Egyptian governorates with the highest coronavirus vaccination rates, the ministry said, quoting Hany Gemeia, deputy undersecretary of the ministry in Beheira.