China gifts Egypt 60 million doses of COVID-19 vaccine: Health minister

CAIRO – 24 September 2022: China has gifted Egypt 60 million coronavirus vaccine doses, of which 10 million has so far arrived, Egyptian Minister of Health Khaled Abdel Ghaffar said on Saturday.

Abdel Ghaffar’s remarks were made during the opening of a vaccine cooling and storage complex of the country’s Holding Company for Biological Products and Vaccines (VACSERA) in the Sixth of October city in Giza.

Abdel Ghaffar also celebrated more than a year and a half of partnership between VACSERA and China’s biopharmaceutical company Sinovac Biotech Ltd, which helped Egypt produce over 30 million Sinovac coronavirus vaccine doses.

Egypt has manufactured tens of millions of Sinocav/VACSERA vaccine after the Egyptian Drug Authority (EDA) has permitted the emergency use of the first locally-manufactured vaccine against coronavirus in August last year.

The manufacturing of the Sinovac coronavirus doses in Egypt is part of an agreement that VACSERA signed with the Chinese biopharmaceutical company, aiming initially to produce 40 million doses of the locally-made vaccine by the end of 2021.

Egypt has seen a drop in coronavirus cases and deaths over the past months. Last week, Presidential Advisor for Health Affairs Mohamed Awad Tag El Din said COVID-19 deaths in the country fell to almost zero.

He noted that the situation had become very reassuring, and the infections had become few. He rather explained during televised statements that the latest sixth wave of coronavirus in Egypt was “very weak”.